To Earn One's Wings
by Daughter of the Darkness Flame
Summary: Terra wants out from under the overprotective guard of her parents. Lisha just wants out, period. They find their escape on the road...but it's the things trying to find them that make the story interesting... !First two chapters edited!
1. First Prologue: Leave

The best thing about people being too lazy to review your story is that you can decide to rewrite the entire first chapter and not feel the slightest bit guilty about it.

Pretty much, I felt that the quality of the first two chapters was lacking, and decided to revamp them a bit. If you've already read them, probably need to go back and read things again. The plotline has been tweaked just enough that you're going to be confused in another twenty chapters or so. If you haven't, rejoice! I personally feel that this version is more entertaining. If you cannot read words longer than two syllables, then this story might not be for you. Stop now and look elsewhere.

Still reading? Excellent. Just make sure that the mass exodus of the tides of stupidity didn't mow you down.

Again, if you read the first version, skip the warnings section and move on to the first or new chapter, whatever floats your boat. If you didn't you may wish to check the warnings, or just laugh at them. Your choice.

Boring Standard Disclaimer: I actually do own Pokemon! I just bought up Nintendo yesterday! Hurray for being a bored and lazy teenager!

Feh. Yeah right. I wish. And if you believed that… 'Gullible' is written on your ceiling in invisible ink. Did you know that invisible ink becomes visible if you hold a lit match/lighter under it? No, really, it does. You should try it. Start with the section of ceiling directly above your computer and fan out from there.

Warning: OC's abound! This is based on the _video game, _not the anime, so don't expect Ash to come bounding in to save the day. There will be violence, character death, Pokemon death, cursing, and angsting teenagers. If you feel the need to flee in horror, do so now. I am not responsible for any emotional scaring that is the result of my bad sense of humor.

Most of this will take place in Hoenn (I blame my Ruby version which I recently got re-addicted to). The prologue will take place in Kanto and Johto, and will probably be rather confusing, as a lot of my original twist to this story is introduced here. Enjoy!

-Daughter of the Darkness Flame-

First Prologue: Leave

* * *

_(Outside the rail station. Going to Saffron, anyone?)

* * *

_

Everything was quiet on the rail, which had been completed several years earlier. It currently stopped in only two cities, Goldenrod City in the Johto region, and Saffron City in the Kanto region. Due to the success of the rail, its builders were starting to add on to the network so it would stop at other populous cities, but those additions would probably take several years to complete. At the impossibly early hour of two am, very few people were boarding when the train stopped in Goldenrod City. In just two and a half hours, it would be in Saffron City.

Travel from one continent to another made easy, affordable, and safe.

A woman with flame red hair looked longingly at the rail station. The dark red shirt she was wearing was stained, dirty, and stretched indecently on her stomach even as the sleeves hung frayed and uneven from her arms. And her stomach itself, the only part of her body that could even pretend at plenty and health, was stretched to its limit by the baby growing within. The hem of her skirt was every bit as frayed and uneven as her sleeves, and covered with rips that had been sewn crudely shut with varying different colors of thread, which caused it to cling awkwardly and unflatteringly to her body. The black leggings that covered her legs were torn, and some of the tears were surrounded by off white smudges, as if she'd spilled yogurt or buttermilk on herself and hadn't had the time, opportunity, or motivation to wash them. Her hiking boots were two sizes too big and falling apart, lashed to her legs by grimy gray cloth that had obviously been torn off the hem of her skirt some time ago. Her limbs were like sticks, her hair hung in uncombed and dirty ratty mats, and her skin, underneath the layer of grime that seemed to surround her, was unnaturally and deathly pale. She was as clearly undernourished as she was underdressed for the winter chill. In fact, it was a small miracle that both she and the baby were still alive, if not totally well. Despite the fact that the temperature was in the mid-thirties and getting colder, she stood stock still, staring at the rail station as if it were the last light of salvation. The only movements that betrayed the fact that she was still alive was the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed and her habit of twisting the fourth finger on her right hand, as if playing with a ring that was no longer there. If only…

"Hey, there she is!" a male voice shouted. Several goons seemed to materialize out of the sleepy orange gloom of the city lights, toughs dressed in black uniforms with a large letter 'R' emblazoned across the front that almost seemed to glow in the artificial light. The redhead looked down at her swollen belly and wanted to bust into tears. At nine months, she could barely move, let alone outrun nearly half a dozen physically fit young men and women and whatever pokemon they had with them. After nearly a year of running, of hiding, of sleeping in dirt and eating whatever filth she could scavenge and beg for, she was going to get caught. And after that, after they threw her in a lab and drew her blood out with needles and did whatever experimentation they wanted with her, even if she died of it, they would still have her unborn child to do with as they pleased…

"No," she whispered, golden eyes flashing in misery and denial. "Not that," she moaned, brilliant light curling around her closed fist. She knew what doing this would cost her in a city. She knew that she didn't have enough strength left in her starving and child-laden body to support this. She didn't care. Better for them both to die than to be captured. Her husband had not given his life so that they could both end up in cages, treated worse than the basest of wild Pokemon…!

"Not going to run this time?" asked a woman with dark hair, her face obscured by the cap she wore.

"I am too weary to run," she admitted.

"Too weary to fire off your pretty lights too?" one of them asked mockingly.

"Come closer and find out," she dared them, and they backed away from her. From the light, or the slightly crazed smile, she couldn't say. But they were backing away. That was what was important…

"Azumarill, go!" cried the woman, and the rabbit-like blue pokemon appeared with a happy trill turned sinister by what was happening, and what she knew would happen next.

_Water, _she realized in dismay. _They finally figured it out. That's my greatest weakness right there._ A strong enough water attack could even cut through a light bolt, since really, all her light powers were was a more concentrated form of fire… and she didn't think she could concentrate it very well in this wearied state. _Such a pity I don't burn, or I'd use it on myself._

"Now, we're down to two options. We can take you in alive, or we can have your baby cut out of you and stuck on life support for the first two weeks of its life. Which one of those options sounds better to you?"

She opened her mouth to surrender, but something small and red sailed right in front of her face, landing with a dull clunk at her feet. An explosion of light right in front of her revealed a large, furry blue mass with a ring of fire around its neck almost like a mane. A Typlosion, if she recalled correctly. It turned back to her and gave her a rodent's grin, patting her on the head in reassurance.

-Don't worry about the rabbit, little sister, I eat mouthfuls like that for breakfast. They don't taste much good, though. Too much water, not enough meat.-

"I thank you," she murmured to it-he? Yes, definitely male. If these idiots escaped, they didn't need another power to add to the list of what they knew she already had. If she had her way, no one would know that she possessed the ability to understand the speech of the Pokemon.

"Good job, Cinder… just keep guarding," a feminine voice panted, and from the open door of a nearby hotel a woman sprinted out, half doubled over from exertion. A violet backpack was slung haphazardly over her shoulder and a dark blue denim jacket hung from her arms, as if she hadn't had enough time to put it on properly. The black cami that she was wearing had the look of something that one might sleep in, especially since she quite obviously wasn't wearing a bra underneath it, and the leather belt from which her other five pokeballs hung hadn't been completely fastened, or threaded through the belt loops of her jeans. Her powdery blue hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, as if she hadn't had time to fix that properly either. Despite the cold of the night, she was barefoot, and from the beginnings of her shivers was seriously regretting it. Surprisingly for someone barely half dressed, she was wearing jewelry; a silver choker with a cheap pale blue crystal hanging from it, and a single bright red feather dangling from her left ear that caught the artificial light of the streetlamps and seemed to reflect it like a prism, throwing little rainbows in every direction. "Y'know… it's funny… every time I think Team Rocket can't possibly sink any lower… I find myself proven oh-so-very wrong. Actually, I thought I was drunk when I looked out my window, since I was nearly _positive _that you freaks disbanded five years ago. I guess only the good die young, eh?"

"Why don't you keep your nose out of business that doesn't concern you, whore?" sneered one of the men, blatantly ogling her chest. "Or better yet, stick around. This has been one damn boring job, I could use a reward for myself later…" he was cut off as his superior elbowed him in the stomach. "Hey, Rachelle, what was that for? I certainly don't get in the way of _your _fun…"

"Do you really want to _die_, Oscar, or do you just enjoy giving me heart failure? If you can't tell who you're talking to, shut up!" she snarled. "And as for you, girl, you're not familiar with how this organization runs now. Our weakling leaders have been swept aside by the new order, and this Team Rocket will make Kanto and Johto tremble as their predecessors only _wished _they could. You might… regret… standing in our way this time."

"And how do you plan on achieving this greatness, Rachelle?" the blue-haired woman sneered. "By abducting harmless women too pregnant to run away properly?"

"Now that's the funny thing about harmless people, they squirm so prettily when put under pressure. How _is _your mother, by the way, all alone by herself in New Bark Town?"

"Empty threat, Rachelle," the woman sneered. "In fact, I could almost pity anyone who tries something like that. She's babysitting some pokemon for an old friend of mine, you see, and most of them are every bit as irritable as he is. And my dear little Static is also keeping her company. You do remember her, don't you? My Ampharos?" Rachelle flinched. She remembered all too well. "So, empty posturing and attempts at saving pride aside… flee or fight. What is it going to be?"

The woman with the cap snapped her fingers and the Azumarill opened right up with a Water Gun. Having no time or room to dodge (moving would have meant that the pregnant woman got hit), poor Cinder was forced to take the hit in the stomach.

-Oww,- the Typlosion whined, skidding backward slightly but otherwise not moving.

"Please stop! This isn't worth it! We…we can all run together, maybe they won't catch us!" the woman begged.

"Lady… you're not giving us nearly enough credit, is she, Cinder? Sure they caught us flat-footed… but that was the only way they could win, wasn't it, Rachelle, dearest old enemy? And it didn't work… did it?" Her smile was nasty, and her pale blue eyes utterly void of pity. Not that her opponents deserved any. "Cinder! You don't need my help on this one. Do what you please, as long as that doesn't involve killing people."

-Are you sure? That annoying rabbit…-

"Will make you fat. And probably tastes awful. Get to it." The redheaded woman blinked in surprise. _No. That's impossible. She can't really understand what he's saying, can she? It was a lucky guess and nothing more._

-You suck the fun out of life,- the Typlosion sighed. And then he did the most amazing thing: he started to walk forward.

"N-no! That's impossible! Azumarill, just keep pumping, damnit!" the woman in the cap shouted, the brim slipping back slightly as she tossed her head in denial to reveal dark blue eyes shining with fear.

The Azumarill redoubled its efforts, but Cinder forced his way forward, coming relentlessly closer and closer. Stray water droplets splashed his mane, and he whined in pain.

-I really am going to eat you when I catch you, bunny,- he growled. -Gulp. One bite. Mistress won't have anything to complain about if there's no evidence.-

The stream of water slackened off a bit and the Azumarill started to shake. Cinder gained ground more quickly.

"This is… insane!" Rachelle gasped. "Wheezing, come out! Give us a Smokescreen!" Cinder sucked in a breath as the pokemon flashed into existence, and just as it started to spew out the first tendrils of choking smog, the fire-type let loose a Flamethrower attack that knocked it into a (thankfully) brick building at the opposite end of the street. It slid down the wall right to the sidewalk where it laid like a scorched purple whoopee cushion, periodically spitting out puffs of smog.

And through all this, Cinder was still advancing.

"I… that's… you're a _demon_!" Rachelle shrieked. "You and your pokemon were always good… but this…"

"I've been busy since I wiped the floor with you Rockets, Rachelle," the woman sighed, slipping on her jacket and clutching it tightly around herself. Her jaw was bulging from the effort she was putting into stopping her teeth from chattering.

At that point, Cinder was within grabbing distance of the poor Azumarill. He leaned over… and clamped its jaws shut. The creature instantly swelled up like a balloon, still trying to force water out as its trainer had asked for.

-This isn't going to be nearly as fun as eating you, little bunny, - he growled, -but it'll be more amusing for my Mistress, I'm sure.- He then picked up the luckless Azumarill, pointed it back at the Rockets… and let go. Water fountained out of the creature's mouth, sweeping the Rockets back to the other end of the street. With the rest of its water spent, the Azumarill sagged in Cinder's arms, too weak and sick from having so much water forcibly held back to move.

"Wh-who the hell is she, Rachelle?" spluttered one of the other Rocket members.

"C'mon, idiot, don't you recognize her?" Rachelle asked. "I'll give you a hint, people started calling her the Lady Azure after…"

"Now forgive me, Rachelle, it has been a while since I've done this… but isn't this the part where you tuck tail and run?" the blue-haired girl cut in, her eyes flashing in annoyance at the title.

"Are you insane, little girl? I told you that Team Rocket has changed. If we come back without that woman…" Rachelle shuddered.

"Well, that's just a damn shame now, isn't it? Because that's exactly what's going to happen. Cinder, keep them busy for a minute, will you?" When the large blue-furred pokemon growled in agreement, she then turned to the soon-to-be mother and tossed her something small and plastic. "Here, take this and ask the lady at the desk for a room service menu. You can charge anything you want to my room with that card."

_Food, _she thought, biting her lips shut to keep from drooling. "I… I have no money. I have nothing left worth selling. I have no home and no family. I can never pay you back."

"Beh, look at this hotel. Do you think I need money? I'm doing this because I enjoy helping people and grinding Rockets into paste. It's like a two for one deal."

"I… thank you…" she said, stunned. _If only I could have met her just two weeks ago… it might have been enough to save my life…_ she sighed deeply as she turned to walk inside, her hand coming up to rub her swelling stomach. The unborn child had pilfered her body's reserves to sustain it's own growth, and she hadn't been able to get her hands on enough food while on the run to sustain both the child's and her own need for sustenance. She was now too weak to support herself through childbirth. When the baby was born… she would die. She had nothing more left to give than that.

"Where do you think you're going, bitch? Arbok, tangle her up with a…!"

"Forget about me so damn soon, did you? Moonwalker! Up and Psychic!"

The hotel door slid shut behind her, cutting of the screams of the Rocket's pokemon abruptly. The woman who had been sitting at the desk and leaning halfway over the counter to see out the glass doors snapped back so quickly she nearly teetered over and hit the wall.

"Um, hi! Welcome to the Golden Fields. Can I help you?" the clerk asked, trying to straighten her uniform and compose herself while gaping in open curiosity at the redhead.

"Erm, I just got in and my… cousin… said that I could order food with this," the woman lied.

"Well, we do offer room service at all hours…" she winced at a particularly loud crash outside. "Um, may I ask exactly what's going on out there?"

"Well… some unsavory men tried to give me trouble on my way here and my… cousin… decided to take care of them personally."

"I… see. Perhaps I should call for the Goldenrod City police…"

"My cousin is here on… private business," the woman said intently, hoping that the fact that her rescuer physically powerful and financially well off might mean that she was intimidating enough to forestall these unwanted questions. _The last thing _I _certainly need is official attention. The government would be just as happy to have me dissected as Team Rocket, if they knew I existed. _"If you could tell me the room number?" she asked as she handed the room card over to the clerk. Biting her lip, the woman working the desk ran it through a scanner and looked up at the computer screen.

"Oh… you're with…" she squeezed her eyes shut and took several deep, calming breaths. "Well, if there's a League Master involved, I probably don't want to know. And I'm sure that the police department has better things to do than get themselves involved in a Master's personal matters. Especially in a way that would involve my name coming up… ah, yes. Right. Your room number. Haldrien, room 206, on the second floor and to the left of the elevator. You can phone for whatever food you want, and it will be charged to the room."

"Thank you," she said, bowing her head slightly in gratitude.

"Don't mention it," the clerk mumbled. "…to anyone…" she added in a mutter under her breath.

* * *

"Meddling… child…" Rachelle hissed, clutching her bruised ribcage as she tried to lever herself off the sidewalk. "If it weren't for your damnable interference… I'd never have been demoted to this filthy work… and now you stick your overdeveloped sense of self-righteousness into our efforts again…! This time it will cost you dearly, Lady Azure, and the price will be far more than that redheaded sneak thief that you were so enamored with…!"

"Shut up!" Crystal hissed, stomping on the hand the defeated woman was using to support herself. The Rocket's arm buckled and she fell facedown on the sidewalk with a whimper. "Who are you, fool, whose force I have just decimated to be issuing threats? Who are you, Rachelle, whose plots and schemes I have foiled time and time again to be slandering my dearest friend? Who are you, coward, whom I have humiliated in single combat to address me at all?"

"Heh," the Rocked grunted, somehow managing to turn a pained grimace into a half smirk. "You're a hypocrite, that's what. You hunted us once for stealing pokemon, and yet you befriended the thief who robbed the man who gave you your starter. After your pokemon decimated ours you beat us up. With your fists. It's a shame that you're such an arrogant, self-righteous bitch; you'd really fit in with where the Rockets have gone since you toppled the upper management. In fact, the boss might even be happy to have you…"

Something broke behind the woman's pale eyes, and she picked the woman up by the collar and slammed her into a stone wall. "I am currently on leave from official League business, Rachelle. For the moment I am a traveler and nothing more. However, if you ever even breathe those thoughts again, _to anyone_, I might be sorely tempted to change my travel plans for the sole purpose of causing you and the rest of Team Rocket some serious pain. I honestly don't care who's running your filthy organization now – one rabid Ratatta is little different from the other – but if I see anything like I saw tonight I might just be forced to stop and do something more…permanent…about it. I am not a child anymore, Rachelle. And, as you said so eloquently earlier, I am far removed from the innocent, naïve fool who challenged Team Rocket all those years ago with a League master looking over her shoulder. If you force me to do something immediate about this shiny new problem it will be something along the line of finding your main hideout and razing it to the ground. With everyone still inside it. How clear are we on this, _ex-executive _Rachelle?"

"C-clear as crystal," the woman choked out, spraying the blue-haired woman with a fine mist of blood.

"Shit," the woman growled, delivering one final blow to the head to knock her unconscious.

-Wounds of the insides are dangerous,- pointed out Moonwalker, her Espeon. The name was an echo of her childhood, of the little girl she'd been when she started her journey. The creature hadn't allowed her to change it. -She'll die without serious help.-

"I'm well aware of that," she sighed, trying to scrub the blood off her face with a sweat-soaked hand. All that did was leave rusty smears in the place of crimson droplets. "By the sacred ashes of Ho-oh, that's the last thing I wanted. Legal interference. If these people get away from us again, we might never find Quartz's…"

-Your people tend to look the other way when it comes to violence against these worthless creatures,- Cinder pointed out, -but the bluecoats will not overlook deaths at our hands.-

"You didn't touch these people."

-Will the navy men believe that?- Moonwalker asked.

"Probably not," she sighed, raking a hand through her hair, which had come loose during the fight. She started fishing around her pockets for another hair tie. "What am I going to do with that girl? If she could go to the police, she would have already. I didn't stick my neck out this far just to have her stuck in a cell somewhere…"

-Why are you asking us, human?- Moonwalker teased, already starting to try and groom the blood out of her pale lavender coat. -We're the muscle. Ideas are your job.-

"You're right, annoying creature. The only thing I can think of is to get her out of town…" she snapped her fingers. "Brilliant! I am _so _glad that I chose this hotel. Moonwalker, Cinder, return!"

-Aww, no fa-

The two-part chorus was cut off by a red glow as the creatures were dragged back into their pokeballs. Almost before they had been fully recalled, she was dashing back into the hotel.

The redhead's eyes slowly slid shut as she chewed a small bite of grilled tomato. This was purely heaven. She was warm and well on the way to being full. Not all that bad for the last week or so of her existence…

"You okay?" her savior asked as she burst through the door, flecked with blood and once more panting.

"Yes. But you obviously are not. Did something go wrong?"

"Something did all right, but with me, not them," she sighed, opening a drawer in the minifridge that the redhead had overlooked when she first got to the room and extracting a wine cooler. She ripped off the top and downed the thing in two gulps. "I had a bit of a personal issue with the woman and injured her more severely than I'd intended. She has broken ribs and probably a punctured lung. If she doesn't get help sometime in the next ten minutes she might die. I really hate to do this, but I'm going to _have _to notify the Goldenrod police department, if someone else hasn't already. I assume that you need to be gone by then?"

The redhead looked mournfully down at her half-eaten meal. "Yes."

"Mind telling me why the Rockets are so interested in you? I have some friends who might be able to help…"

"Do you mean the other League masters?" the redhead asked with a penetrating stare.

The blue haired woman squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head towards the ceiling. "Did you already know or were you told?"

"Told. The girl at the desk was tripping over herself to help me out once I showed her your room card."

"Damn blabbermouth…"

"You can't blame her for saying something."

"I guess not, but I was paying for a level of discretion when I booked this room… no matter. Since you know my name by now, surely you wouldn't mind giving me yours?"

"…Ria. Ria Anasera. It's a pleasure to meet you, Crystal Haldrien."

"I'm sure it'll be an even bigger pleasure to meet this," she replied, tossing Ria another card. At first glance, it looked like the hotel's key cards. It was even the same hue of off-white. But the emblem on the non-magnetic side…

"This… this is a rail card! I've never seen one this color before, but this must be a rail card!"

"That's a special edition unlimited pass," Crystal agreed. "You could probably sell that for an arm and a leg even without the collector's value. You can get to Saffron tonight with that, and once you're out of Goldenrod you're out of the police department's jurisdiction. So…"

"But… but I… you can't _possibly _expect me to accept this! I'll never be able to pay you back! I can't take this on top of everything else you've done for me…"

"Hey, look, I got that pass as a gift from a girl who was just a little too obsessive over her dolls. Honestly, _I _shouldn't have accepted it in the first place, and if I'd had a better idea of how much that damn thing cost I'd like to think I wouldn't have no matter how insistent the brat was. So take it, sell it, use it again… burn it, if you will. But you need to leave. The train will be departing from the platform in four minutes and I need to place the call now.

"I understand," she said, shoveling the last remaining mouthfuls of her meal into her mouth, hoping that she'd be able to keep them down. "I will never forget your kindness."

"If you hang around in Saffron for a couple of days, I can show you some more. Once my business is done, I'll find you…"

Ria smiled sadly, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes as she walked quickly out the door. She knew, in her heart, that she would never see the kindhearted woman who had saved her ever again.

* * *

A scant few moments later, a woman dressed in travel-stained rags staggered aboard the train. At that hour, she was probably the only person aboard, but she scurried to the very last car in case she had to make a break for it, completely ignoring the fact that if she opened the emergency escape door at the back the speed that the train was going would suck her and anyone else in the cabin straight out into the night, where they would probably be smashed to bloody goop. Although, she might have thought that preferable to being captured…

About two minutes after that, a young couple wearily boarded the car, because late night passage was all they could afford at the moment. Unlike the lone woman, they headed closer to the front of the car, the woman clinging to her husband's arm and looking nervously out the windows. She makes a whispered comment about a feeling, and he assures her that it's nothing. Although, not very well. He has the instincts of a trainer, and he could feel it too.

And just before the final bell rang and the doors closed, three figures in black managed to drag themselves aboard the train, nursing sprained ankles, broken collarbones, and bruised egos.

"_Damnit to hell!"_ Crystal Haldrien growled as she snapped the Pokegear shut with an annoyed click. "Little shits, how dare they play possum…!"

-You gonna do anything about it?- Cinder asked, leaning over the balcony and growling at the swiftly vanishing train.

"What _can _I do? That train may be able to cross the distance between one continent and another in an hour, but it doesn't run all that frequently at night. It won't be back until eight in the morning at least! I won't be able to do a damn thing by then…"

-You could always make that lazy bird Zephyr carry you…-

"Do you not have eyes, Cinder? There's no way that a Pigeot could outfly a train going that fast…"

-Really? From his boasting, you'd think that he could get there first…-

Crystal stared at her oldest friend and blinked in surprise. "You're developing a real sense of humor. I think the world might be coming to an end."

-Huh?-

"Sarcasm, Cinder. It's a human thing."

-Really now. Obviously it's a hazard of spending too much time around you.-

"You know you love me, though," she replied, the smile melting off her face as she turned from her friend and surveyed the city at large. "Do you think they'll bolt?"

-What, over one random Rocket beating? They don't have any ties to the Rockets… I don't think you have to worry as long as your name isn't released…- a burst of light interrupted their conversation as a Gengar materialized.

-We're talking about my master, aren't we? Why wasn't I invited to the discussion?- it asked, clapping ghostly hands on both their shoulders and smiling like he was thinking about biting off their heads.

Crystal shot it a brief glare, utterly unphased by the intimidation tactics. "You know, you're supposed to stay in your pokeball unless I call you out."

-One, I don't care what you're master of, you're certainly not the master of me. Two, it's cramped in there, and I want to stretch…-

-You don't _have _anything to cramp or stretch, vapor brain,- Cinder pointed out.

-It's a psychological need,- the Gengar replied with a dismissive wave of its purple hand. -Besides, you're talking about my trainer. Milord Megajaws elected me as the representative, so I'm representing. If Quartz gets left behind, those five will scatter me to bits of vapor. They're pissed enough with me as is for taking them out of there without doubling back to pick up that damn rock.-

"Might I remind you that if you had done that we wouldn't be _in _this situation right now?" Crystal hissed at him.

-Hey feather-lady, I tried! But when I doubled back from the Olivine center, the place was already deserted! Except for, you know, the Gengar-eating Persain with a grudge that almost _killed _me and that psychopath with the full restores that kept healing the evil creature every time I _did _find a way to attack it.-

"We understand," Crystal said, placing a comforting hand on Gengar's shoulder. "And I, for one, am grateful that you did what you did. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have the slightest clue what was wrong with him, let alone where to start looking. I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier."

-Beh, you should be. I don't know why Quartz goes all gooey over you, bossy female.-

-Shut up about my mistress, vapor brain!- snarled Cinder, baring his fangs angrily. -I don't even know why we're helping you. We should be escorting the light-sister, not wasting our time here with an ungrateful shadow of a pokemon like you!-

-I dare you to say that again, you overgrown piece of coal and fluff!-

"Both of you, stop arguing like newborn hatchlings and let me think!" roared Crystal and the air around them seemed to crackle.

-What is there to think about?- the Gengar asked, noticeably subdued.. -You free Master, you and he mate and lay lots of eggs, and everyone's happy.-

-That's not how humans do it, vapor brain,- Cinder admonished.

"Thank you," Crystal murmured, flushing a brilliant scarlet.

-…they don't lay eggs,- the navy-furred pokemon continued with a toothy smirk. -They give birth to live young.-

-Live… eeew! That's _disgusting_! You're a filthy pervert, charcoal breath! He's lying, isn't he feather-lady?-

"I refuse to take part in this conversation," Crystal groaned, pulling her jacket over her head and trying to tune them out, ignoring the cold as it rushed into the opening she'd made by hiking her jacket up.

-I'm telling the truth! They come out all covered in blood and still attached to their mothers by a fleshy chord, which the whitecoats have to cut off. That's why all humans have that weird indent thing on their stomachs. It's where the chord was.-

-Right. Next thing, you're going to be telling me that Clefairies really _do_ come from the moon,- Gengar sneered, recovering his composure. -And if you are right, how could you know all that stuff anyway? For organic beings, humans actually have a little decorum. They don't just throw their litters-

"_Throw _our _litters?_" Crystal repeated in a scandalized mutter before she remembered that she wasn't listening to the conversation anymore and started trying to tune it out and think again.

-all over for the entire world to see.-

-I know all this from Moonwalker,- Cinder admitted, -But _she _actually saw it. Her and Static.-

-Really? When?-

-Back after the… the whole Mahogany thing, when Crystal got stuck in the Human Center. Moonwalker and Static weren't as bad off as the rest of us, and Crystal's mom kinda let them run wild in the Human Center while she was taking care of them. The staff people were too afraid to get too close to them, so they pretty much did whatever they wanted to. I'm really glad we don't have to go to the Human Center, some of the things they do to themselves is just creepy.-

-Your teammates have obviously been feeding you lines,- the Gengar sighed, rolling its red eyes.

-Oh yeah? Let's get Moonwalker out here so she can tell us herself! C'mon, Crystal, help me out here!-

"Cinder. Earlier, you said something about a light-sister. You didn't mean… with the bells, and the tower and…"

-What else would I mean?- the Typlosion asked, momentarily confused. -Wait, you don't mean you didn't _notice?_-

"Of course I didn't notice! Don't you think I would have made her stay where I could keep an eye on her if I had noticed?"

-What is it that we're talking about now?- Gengar asked.

-Feather stuff,- Cinder replied, pointing at Crystal's earring.

-Oh. Right. That stuff that I don't want to know about. Right, I'll just float over here and start stargazing…- he muttered, drifting to the far edge of the balcony. -Lovely night, really. Did I mention that? Because it really is just _beautiful_…-

"You haven't said anything," Crystal commented as they both tuned out Gengar's rambling.

-Don't you think… you've been just a little too… what's the word… intense… lately?- Cinder asked gingerly, as if she were an Electrode on the verge of Selfdestructing.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

-You're violent,- Cinder stated bluntly. He was really very good at that, the only pokemon she'd ever had that had been more openly honest with her when it came to her faults had been Suicune. -You would never have hit Rachelle with your bare hands before. You would have tried to protect the light-sister instead of sending her off to Kanto. Sometimes, to me anyway, it almost seems that when they sucked out Quartz's soul, they got a big chunk of yours, too…-

Crystal toyed with the pale blue stone around her neck and gave no reply.

"_No! Absolutely not! I forbid it!"_

"_C'mon my beautiful blue diamond, it's one last heist. And it's not live cargo… it's gemstones! Sparkly rocks!"_

"_It's still illegal and dangerous! I'm a League Master, Quartz! Do you have any idea how much scrutiny I'm under? Do you have any idea how much scrutiny _you'll _be under once you make the cut yourself? It will never work!"_

"_I've given up on the Elite Four, Crystal. Besides, even if I did make Master, our combined paychecks will _still_ amount to less than Spearow scratch. The only way to really become a wealthy trainer is to play stakes, and I know you hate doing that. These people are every bit as crooked as Team Rocket was, and their security is even worse… if that's possible. We can take the stones they stole from someone else, sell them, and make more than enough money to retire to someplace so remote our children won't know how famous we are until we take them to New Bark to start their own journeys."_

"_I still don't like it."_

"_This is the last time I'll ever steal anything, you have my word. I'll even fess up to that prof you're so fond of, and beg on bended knees for your mom to bless our wedding. I… you're a treasure, my blue diamond. I want that hunk of worthless quartz around your neck to be the precious gem that you deserve. I want to give you and our children a better life than I've had…"_

Her hand tightened into a fist around the necklace. "Perhaps, in a way, you are right…. Which just makes it all the more imperative for us to get it back, doesn't it." She dropped her hand and turned from the window. "Come, both of you. We will settle things tonight, so we can all move the hell on with our lives."

-All right! About bloody time!- exclaimed Gengar.

-Wait, I thought we didn't have any way in!-

"Well, I just thought of something. And I guess I have that Rocket grunt to thank for it too," she replied with a smirk. Gengar shot a confused look at Cinder who could only shrug and shake his head in bewilderment while shooting a very worried glare at Crystal, but she only smiled that self-satisfied smile and gestured for them to come back into the hotel. Once they had all crossed the threshold she slid the sliding glass door shut and drew the curtains behind them.

The wonders of the rail. Travel from one continent to another made easy, affordable, and safe

Of course safety is a relative term, and can vary depending on who is in the general area.

* * *

(snorts) God, I love writing Gengar. He's such a wiseass.

Also, a note on language: You will find people in my Pokeverse saying things like 'Oh Snorlax'. This is normal. Crystal actually swears. This is considered excessively vulgar (Far worse than it is here in the real world) and is looked down upon. Back when she was a little kid, she never swore. Then she started hanging around with Quartz, and… I think you can guess. She tries to keep a handle on it, but she gets progressively worse the more stress she's under. Her boyfriend is in a coma. Hence, she is under an enormous amount of stress. What, exactly, is wrong with the Rival? (evil grin) Wouldn't _you _like to know…

Clap and move on to the second half of the prologue! Yes, it needed to be divided into two halves. This first part you just read? Eight pages. Single spaced. Size ten font and standard margins.

Yes, be very afraid.

In case you're interested…

Cinder's Moves: (Don't quote me on this because I need to restart my game (There is something truly, seriously screwed up with my Crystal version that has nothing to do with the traded Pokemon in my party) but I believe that a Typlosion can learn all these moves)

Strength

Flamethrower

Fire Blast

Sunny Day

Moonwalker's Moves

Psychic

Return

Morning Sun

Toxic


	2. Second Prologue: Girl

Can anyone tell me where I can find a guide with a list of moves that pokemon learn as they level up? Color me lazy, but I don't want to have to replay Ruby and Crystal just so I can figure out what moves pokemon should have… or drop fifty dollars buying guidebooks. I used to have a really good one for Crystal version, but it vanished off the face of the earth, and the last time I went hunting for it I almost fainted from dust inhalation.

* * *

Second Prologue: Girl

* * *

_(Aboard the rail, en route to Saffron. Watch the night-dark hills roll by, but don't fall off…)

* * *

_

Katia's large blue eyes filled with tears as she looked at the landscape blurring past the window as she toyed with the contents of her purse, her fingers caressing a small, tubelike piece pf plastic at the very bottom. A pregnancy test. Once, just once, she would love for it to turn blue. A little boy, a little girl, she didn't care at this point, she wanted a child of her own more than anything else in the world. She and her husband had been forced to sell the house her parents had left her to get enough extra money to see a fertility doctor…

That had been a year and four doctors ago. Still no baby.

She was really, really beginning to loathe the color blue, and it didn't help that she had to see it every time she caught her eyes in a mirror. And why not? Blue certainly seemed to hate her. She hated that damn color almost as much as she was beginning to hate medical bills…

"Katia. There's no need to dwell on it," her husband, Norman, sighed. "The very best doctors are in Saffron. We'll be able to find someone there who can help you."

The woman bit her lip, turning her face away from him. "Will we? The money is almost gone, Norman. What are we going to do then? Give up?"

"Of course not. I'll go back to the tournaments and win more money, and we'll try again," he said, determined. "And if conventional treatments won't help… I know a doctor in Saffron. Maybe he can point us to some alternate treatments that actually work." Neither of them breathed a word about adoption. They were a wandering family following Norman's career. Maybe if he managed to make Gym Leader some day, then they would be able to settle in one place and live on a consistent salary, and adoption would be possible. But until then they had a better chance of catching the moon with a butterfly net than getting an adoption agency to give them a child, and Norman getting a position as a Leader would be at least ten years down the line… maybe even more. Katia didn't want to wait ten years. She wanted a baby now!

"Do you… do you ever regret marrying me?"

Norman blinked, confusion filtering into his dark eyes. "Katia, I know you have some true foot in mouth moments, but… why would I ever do a stupid thing like that?"

"I… you're a Trainer, and a good one too. You could have chosen anyone. And maybe if you'd chosen someone else, you'd already have the son I know you've always wanted…"

He glanced at her consideringly for a moment. "You know, I've often wondered the same thing about you. Why did you pick someone like me, always on the road with no home of his own, sleeping under the stars or in a Pokemon Center more often than anyplace with a comfortable bed, sometimes not even scratching out enough money for food, when you could have had someone much better suited to give you a decent lifestyle?"

"Don't be silly, Norman, I already knew all that when I said our marriage vows. I wanted you. I don't care where I have to go to get you, either."

"Well then, I feel the same way," he reassured her, a somewhat relieved grin spreading across his face. "I love you, Katia. I will admit that I want a child, but not enough to leave you for someone else. If I have to wait for two years, or five, or until I'm in a good enough position to retire or gain a good position in a Gym so that we can adopt, I'll wait." He lovingly brushed a strand of light brown hair out of her face and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. She finally smiled back at him. She couldn't help herself. Norman always knew exactly what to say to make her feel better. "So don't give up, okay? We'll make this work out." He wrinkled his nose and chuckled. "We've certainly had plenty of experience at coping in the past. And I think if we could cook pokemon food into something edible, we can take just about any problem that life throws at us and make something good out of it."

Katia actually giggled at that quip. "I actually remember that trip, Mr. 'we don't need to stock up on more supplies, darling.' You never _did _end up using those full heals, either."

"How was I supposed to know that people were so generous with dropping their Antidotes – and usually their entire packs, I don't think I had to buy any Pokemon supplies for two months after that trip – when they were running from the Beedrill swarms? What _I _remember is-" A piercing wail shattered the good mood like glass, and they sprang to their feet, scanning the empty car for the source of the noise.

A woman wrenched the door open and tripped over the slight step up from the small and twisting metal corridor that connected the cars together, catching herself from falling flat on her face by desperately clutching the back of one of the chairs, forcing her to her knees with a whimper of pain and fear. Her wild blood-red hair seemed to be trying to go every direction at once, and her golden eyes (an uncommon but not unheard of trait among humans) were wide in terror. Slender, almost sticklike arms clutched the chair she'd used to break her fall as if that was all that was keeping her very pregnant stomach from dragging her to the floor. _How can she abuse her poor baby like that? _Katia wondered with a flare of jealous fury, taking her at first glance to be one of those expecting mothers who starves herself to try and keep the figure she'd had before getting pregnant, but a second look showed her something far more sinister. Her clothing was filthy, tattered, and sized for several completely different people. She had no luggage, no purse. And her heavy breathing and facial expression weren't manifestations of fear for what had almost happened, but signs of what was going to happen next.

"Ma'am? Are you alright?" Norman asked, offering an arm to help her up.

"Do I… look alright?" she snapped, but she did not refuse the help to her feet. "They weren't…. weren't supposed to follow me here. The rail was supposed to be safe." Tears pricked at the corners of her golden eyes. "He always said we'd be safe… if only we could get out of Johto. Well, now he's… he's dead and… I'm alone. Just me and the baby… the baby that will never be born. I was… never going to get to Kanto. Not alive, anyway…"

"Someone's chasing you, and they're on the train?"

She gulped and nodded. "I managed to slip past them, somehow, but they saw me and they're coming this way…"

"If you'd forgive me for asking," Norman said, stepping in front of her and pulling out a pokeball, "can you tell me who this mysterious 'they' is?"

The woman swallowed a sob, the tears that she wanted to shed shining in her eyes. "Team… Rocket."

The door from the other car started to rattle and Norman blanched. "Katia, take her and head up to the front of the train. Lock the door behind you if you can figure out how, but someone else needs to know that the Rockets are here."

"But… weren't they disbanded years ago by the Lady Azure?" Katia asked. Surely a League Master wouldn't have lied, but the redheaded woman was too frightened to be telling anything but the truth… right?

"Apparently they're not as gone as everyone thought. Go! I don't want you to get hurt."

"I…"

"Katia. Go. Please… it sounds like they're trying to break down the door."

Katia blanched. As much as she wanted to say that she could help somehow, she knew that that wasn't true. If Norman had to fight, all she would do was get in the way. "Come on… we need to get out of here," she said, seizing the strange woman's hand.

Golden eyes widened in surprise. "You're… helping me?"

"Of course we are," Katia snorted, half dragging her down the isle. "What, did you just expect us to give you up to Team Rocket or something?"

"You would be far from the first," she said sadly.

Katia snorted. "Some people are slime. I would like to think my husband and I are different." She half turned back and shouted over her shoulder, "You'd better not get yourself hurt, Norman!"

"I'll do my best," he replied wryly, not looking away from the door.

"Goddamned bitch melted the fucking lock!" someone roared from behind as the door gave way with a metallic crunch. The redhead blanched even paler on hearing that and grabbed Katia's arm, dragging _her _into the next car instead of the other way around and activating the switch, closing out the brewing fight behind them. She then placed a hand against the door, which, to Katia's everlasting surprise, started to glow.

"What are you doing?" Katia gasped, snatching her hand away.

"Trying… to keep us both alive," she panted.

"How? By sealing my husband on the wrong side of this door? How is that going to make us any safer?"

"Insurance… for when he loses…"

Katia glared. "Listen, you… you really shouldn't underestimate Norman. He'll pull through, just like he always does," she said confidently. She believed it too, even against God-knows-how-many Rockets.

"No use, anyway… Not enough… strength left…" her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed into a convenient chair.

"Um… hello?" Katia asked, tapping her arm. "Are you still alive?"

Golden eyes opened to slits. "I'm… fine. Just give me… a minute, okay?" It took what seemed like half of eternity for her breathing to slow down to something more reasonable, and Katia watched nervously. With her huge belly supported by her sticklike arms and legs, she seemed so… fragile. "Your husband… he is a very good man."

"I'm glad you agree," Katia said proudly.

"He's… too good to risk himself for me. Help me through the door… I will turn myself over. There is no need… for anyone else to become… embroiled in my affairs tonight."

"What? Don't say things like that. I told you earlier, Norman will definitely send those creeps packing."

"Yes… but if you stand between them… and what they want… they will not forgive you for it… Just like they did not forgive Kosuke."

"What happened?" Katia asked before she could stop herself. _Well, what do you THINK happened, Katia? Look at who you're talking to for a change instead of just opening your mouth blindly and saying stupid things!_

"The Rockets came, and for seven months we ran. Four months ago… we were cornered. They wanted me. They… killed him. The building was collapsing. He held them inside while I ran like the coward I am." Tears welled up in her golden eyes again. "It is all my fault. I should not have come here. I should… if I had never married him, he'd…"

_Why is this sounding vaguely familiar? _"I may not have known your husband, but I'm sure that he wouldn't want you to continue to beat yourself up over this."

"How can you be so sure?" the woman asked, her voice choked with tears.

"You don't marry someone you don't love. You don't throw your life away for no reason. I'm sure that what he wanted most was for you – and the baby – to be happy."

The redheaded woman smiled bitterly and placed an emaciated hand on her swelling stomach. "Once I wanted Kosuke's children more than anything in the world. And now it seems – irony of ironies – that that shall be the death of me. Perhaps this is my punishment."

"Don't say things like that. You'll be fine."

"Really? Look at me. Do you think I could survive childbirth in my condition?"

"Of course I do!" Katia declared stubbornly, but in the privacy of her mind she was comparing the muscle mass that the woman had left against the size of her stomach and was not liking what she was seeing.

The redhead's lips twitched upward in the closest thing to a real smile that Katia had seen her give so far. "You truly are a good woman, Katia. Thank you for trying to cheer me up."

Katia opened her mouth with a mutinous expression on her face, set to tell her that she was going to be just fine, and that she and Norman would see to that, but the words just didn't want to come out. They tripped over themselves inside her mouth, forcing her into silence.

* * *

Oscar greedily rubbed his hands together, all but cackling at his opponent's Furret. A plain old vanilla Normal-type. Nothing as commonplace as a Furret could be a freak like that Typlosion the Lady Azure had had. And the idiot was outnumbered three to one. Since they had saved half their pokemon in reserve once it had become clear that Crystal Haldrien planned on utterly annihilating them, they were more than well prepared to take out one Vanilla Normal-type between the three of them. He could almost taste his promotion…

"Wheezing, use Sludge!" he commanded. Much as he liked starting things off with Poison Gas, quarters were too cramped to make that practical…

"Furret, hold your breath and charge Wheezing with a Headbutt!" the stranger commanded, and Oscar was treated to yet another impossible act as the damn thing charged right through Wheezing's toxic slime as if it were a Mud Slap. It covered the distance across the car only slightly hindered by the onslaught and crashed into Wheezing, a furry little rocket locked onto its target. The force of the blow was enough to knock Whezing haphazardly all over the car, bouncing off walls, other people, the Serviper and the Golbat, spewing mouthfuls of toxic sludge and spurts of noxious gas as it deflated. Oscar's eyes watered as it ricocheted past his head. They would all be in serious trouble if it kept leaking poison like that. "Wheezing, return!" he called out, but the thing bounced left instead of right, and the beam of light missed it by a good foot and a half. "Okay, now attack the Serviper with Fury Swipes!"

"Ret!" the evil thing chirruped cheerfully as it started to charge.

"Uh, Serviper! Use Wrap!" the Serviper's trainer commanded in a panic.

"Idiot," Oscar muttered, pulling his uniform issue cap further over his eyes. The Serviper threw its body around the Furret… which only served to infuriate the creature, causing it to lash out viciously with tooth and claw, inflicting far more damage than it probably would have if it had merely been allowed to attack and spring back. Even the Serviper's attempts to constrict did little to halt the onslaught.

"Why are you trying so hard?" Oscar found himself asking. "You don't even know the woman. She's not even human! She's just using you as a shield to hide behind. All she cares about is escape." Once more he tried to recall his Wheezing, only to hit the empty air when it bounced in the wrong direction.

"Really, I have to wonder why…" Norman said sarcastically. "Regardless of her intensions, I refuse to leave her to your tender mercies. If you will agree to retreat to the last car and remain there for the duration of the journey, and to stop following the three of us once we get off, I'll let you all go free. No charges filed."

Oscar snorted. "Like we'd back off for that!"

The dark-haired man scowled. "It's a pretty decent offer. If you get caught, you'll probably be facing about ten years of jail time, and that woman's story comes out."

Oscar threw his head back and laughed. "Now that's an empty threat if I ever heard one! If her story comes out, little Ria Anasera will be stuck in a laboratory for the rest of her life! Ours, yours, it makes little difference to her, it's still a cage. And if we back down now, if we make a deal with you, the Boss would stick us all in Project Ethera." The others with him, who had been looking somewhat hopeful at the mention of the words 'go free', shuddered and got back onto task.

Norman's eyes narrowed. "And _what _is Project Ethera?"

"No one knows," Oscar said with a nasty smile. "All we grunts know is that people go in… but they never come out again." He once more tried to snatch up his Wheezing with the recall beam – the smog was starting to make breathing a trial – but once more he missed. This time, however, it didn't bounce off in a random direction, it flew straight at his face. _Well shit, _Oscar had time to think before his much-deflated wheezing smacked into his midsection, throwing him diagonally across the car. He was flying straight for a window and not dropping even slightly in his trajectory. At the speeds this thing could reach, the only thing that would happen if he went out of the car would be for him to leave a bloody splatter on whatever was below them, even if it was water. He squeezed his eyes shut and put his hands over his head in a useless attempt to buffer the impact…

…and a hand shot out of nowhere and grabbed his shirt. His head still snapped out and struck the window with enough force to make him see blackish-neon fireworks dance across his vision, but he was otherwise unhurt.

"Couldn't you have managed to catch me before I hit the glass, idiot?" he snarled, smacking the helping hands away.

"Uh, Oscar…" one of his companions said.

"Well what?" he snarled, before realizing that he had flown in the wrong direction for either of them to have broken his flight to imminent destruction. The only person who could have saved him was…

Norman's dark eyes seemed to glitter like chips of black glass in the gloom as he picked up Oscar's pokeball and recalled the Wheezing. "Don't get me wrong," he snapped, dropping the pokeball in Oscar's lap. "If you had gone through the window, all the air would have been sucked out of the car. Everyone would have died, not just you."

"Heh," Oscar sneered. "You just didn't want a death on your conscience. You couldn't kill us even if it meant your own life."

Norman smiled thinly. "And that is what makes me better than you." Just then, his Furret clawed its way free of the Serviper's embrace, and it flopped bonelessly on the floor, panting and gurgling up bubbly blood.

* * *

Katia paced the length of the car. It was a horrible nervous habit of hers that she'd been trying to break for years, but she just couldn't help herself. It certainly didn't seem to bother her companion much. The redhead's unblinking gaze had not left the door since they had stopped talking.

"What are you waiting for?" Katia asked.

"The end of my existence," the woman replied, eyes fixed unblinkingly straight ahead.

"Don't say things like that. Norman is going to win and you are going to be fine. We will help you."

A smile flickered across the woman's lips like a brief burst of sunshine peeking out from behind a cloud before it was snuffed out again. "You say that so many times that I almost begin to believe it myself.

Just then the door began to slide open and they both jumped. To Katia's surprise, light began to concentrate in the woman's tightly clenched fist. When the door slid back to reveal Norman, Katia sighed in relief and relaxed, but Ria just quivered, like a bowstring pulled taut.

"Are they defeated?" she asked softly.

"Yes," Norman replied, looking her straight in the eye, not even blinking at the light concentrated around her fist. "Yes, they are." She seemed to believe him, the tension drained out of her and the light died. Her knees buckled beneath her, depositing her into one of the chairs where she seemed to sink nervelessly into the sparse cushioning, her golden eyes dazed and relieved.

"I knew you'd be just fine!" Katia declared with a smile.

"I assume that's why you neglected to go up one more car and inform the driver?" he asked with a smirk.

"There was no need to upset the other passengers," Katia said with a huge grin.

"Did you kill them?" the redhead interrupted softly, sounding almost asleep.

Norman's eyes widened slightly. "Of course I didn't! I knocked them out and tied them to the benches. Someone will come by and arrest them later."

The redhead shook her head sadly. "That is kind of you, but foolish. If they live to report your face and name back to the main base, you'll never be safe again. You and your wife will be in constant danger. I can't let that happen."

"Well, we're going to be in constant danger anyway, since you're traveling with us from now on," he replied with a faint grin.

Her head snapped up and the dreaminess fled from her posture. "What? No, I couldn't possibly intrude on your lives like that! These people are horrid and relentless and they do not care who they hurt!"

"Which is why you need protection," Katia piped up, smiling her approval at her husband. "You don't have anyone left to care for you, so we'd be happy to help… if you let us. We're always on the move… but I guess you're used to that, aren't you?"

"I… I can't!" she cried, allowing herself to cry for the first time in months. "Don't you understand! Kosuke died when they _destroyed _the foundations of the hotel we were hiding in! We were far from the only people staying there, and when it fell…" she shuddered visibly, "half the people staying there died! Staff. Guests. Children. Other _Rockets. _They have no compunctions and absolutely no respect for life whatsoever. If you tie yourselves to me you will die. I… I could not bear it if that happened…"

"Listen to me, Ria," Norman said, and the redhead jerked at the mention of her name. "Yes, I said Ria. One of the Rockets let your name slip when I was battling him. I know that you are hunted, I know that you own nothing but the clothes on your back, and I know that you are… different. I do not care. Katia does not care. We know that you and your baby need help, and we are more than happy to give it.

"You cannot possibly know what you are getting yourselves into. There is a difference between living on the road and living on the run," Ria protested, but her resolve seemed to be weakening.

"Not that much of a difference," Katia said with a wry chuckle.

Ria signed and buried her head in her hands. "You people are even more impossible than the woman who gave me this rail card," she sighed, twirling the piece of white plastic in her fingers. "Very well. I will travel with you if you will allow me."

"We weren't offering just to make ourselves look good. You're welcome to come with us," Norman replied with a small smile.

The train careened along the rail, heedless of what was going on within it.

* * *

_(The Goldenrod City Underground. If it looks like bait, acts like bait, and has blue hair, run away.)_

_I am bait, _Crystal chanted in her head while wandering the deserted underground shopping area of Goldenrod. _Jailbait, _her mind added, and it was an effort not to laugh hysterically at the pun. She forced her expression to the sort of jaded nonchalance that she'd seen on women who actually plied this profession. _You do not see a Master. Look at my pretty makeup and my cheesy jewelry and my very short skirt. I am a whore. Hello, bad guys, easy fun right here! Look at the pretty Jynx lure and come to nibble!_ The people who had the Aether Crystal had a shopping front somewhere in the Underground that they were using to move the crystals, but she'd been scoping it out for several days and had only managed to narrow it down to five. Mic's Pokemon Accessories, the Aster Family Herbal Medicine Store (For both humans and pokemon! Green Tea now 40 Percent off!), The Cornerstop Ice Cream Parlor (Made with authentic Miltank Milk from Daybreak Dairy! Come visit us on Route 39!), Justin and Enrique's Fine Salon (Pokemon and Trainer Special! One Week Only!), or Diamonds Forever! Makers of Fine Jewelry for over a Hundred and Fifty Years! Crystal personally felt that Diamonds Forever was probably the most logical choice, since if the police did search them the crystals could easily be explained away with the rest of their products (Not that she could go to the police with a story this wild), but all five stores seemed to be escorting an inordinate number of customers to the back for no reason that she could discern. She had known for a while that most of the smuggling probably took place at night, but she hadn't been able to think of any way to get down there without sticking out like a sore thumb. Well, now she had her way. And she had that rude Rocket to thank for it too. Now all she had to do was wander around… and wait to be picked up.

She had only two pokemon with her, disguised as earrings (a nifty trick she'd picked up from a trainer named Lola at the Blackthorn gym) She'd actually seen girls wear fake pokeball earrings before, so hopefully no one would try punching the button to see if the pokeball expanded. That would be… painful.

_Will I really be okay with only two Pokemon with me, and one of them a Gengar that only listens to me half the time anyway?_ she wondered glumly as she strode along in her stiletto heels, briefly scanning her outfit one last time before snapping her eyes up. Whores did not check their outfits. Whores were utterly self confident… at least to the eyes of their customers. The brief scan only confirmed what she'd figured out for herself earlier: the skintight violet tube top (more like violet scarf that just happened to cover her breasts, but for the sake of her dignity she would call it a tube top), long transparent shimmery pale lavender sleeveless coat, and black leather micromini skirt did not have any room to hide anything, not even something as small as a condensed pokeball. Any more pokeball jewelry would look very suspicious. She'd been lucky to figure out a place to hide the Rainbow Feather (snug inside her zipup stiletto black boots)…

_Well, at least I didn't wear this getup for nothing, _she thought with a mental victorious smile and an external saucy smirk Large crates were being moved in and out of Mic's Pokemon Accessories by men who were looking hot, sweaty, and… edgy. Bored would have been more appropriate for the situation, even eager to be in bed would have been appropriate (Was it late or early? She'd begun to lose track.). Edgy meant that they were doing something that they weren't supposed to do.

Perfect.

"My, my, that looks like some heavy lifting," she cooed, batting her eyelashes coyly. The two men jerked and almost dropped their crate before they realized who had addressed them. Then their expressions became nearly identical goofy grins. _Thank goodness for the common low level of intelligence among the peons of the organized crime world._ "Why are you boys working so late? You should come have some fun," she said with a wink and a beckoning gesture. _Thank you, Quartz, for destroying my innocence… it actually came in handy._

"We gotta finish moving these things. They get loaded in an hour."

"An hour is plenty of time for my kind of fun," she cooed with her saucy smile. "C'mon, help a girl out… it's been a slow night. You can even have a two for one special. Only three thousand for the both of you."

"That doesn't seem like much of a break…"

"That's barely enough to feed me for three days," she cut in coldly. Then the sweet, gooey seductiveness(at least, she hoped it was seductiveness and she wasn't just making a total fool of herself) was back, and with a smoky smile she amended, "besides… I'm worth it." She ran a finger gently along the heavily muscled bicep of one of the lifters and smiled more wickedly when he swallowed hard. "So… what do you say we step inside somewhere and I help you… loosen up a bit?"

"Sure," the first one agreed eagerly, all but dropping his end of the large crate, forcing his companion to hastily put down his end as well. The crate landed awkwardly with the sound of rocklike objects rattling together and the clink of metal. _Why hello, I do believe this is the jackpot._

"Be careful with that, you idiot!" the second one snapped. "There's some fragile stuff in here!"

"Relax, it'll be fine. Let's take her in…"

"No, if we're going to do this properly, we'll do it my way. A high-class girl like her likes her sparklies. Let's show her the inside of Diamonds Forever."

"Hey, yeah!" the first one agreed.

"Huh? Does everyone in this strip have you poor boys working the night shift?" she asked sympathetically.

"Eh, actually this place and the jewelry store and a few other places in the Underground are moving a lot of weird things through lately," first guy told her as if confiding a really big secret.

"Huh, you mean like drugs? If I could have a hit later, I'd be willing to cut your fee in half," she asked hopefully.

"Sadly no. All it is is some crystals and a lot of weird techno stuff. And these guys are like, phobic about the junk. I only got a look inside because one of the boxes split, and the guy who pays us nearly wet himself, asking about if we'd told anyone and Muk gunk like that. So even though it looks useless, it must be super illegal," second guy informed her with a secretive smirk, obviously trying to impress her. Sad, really. She'd initially put his intelligence a notch higher than his partner's.

"It sounds really dangerous," she gushed appreciatively as they led her over to the jewelry store with what seemed like agonizing slowness. If she only had an hour to search she wanted to make the most of it, but she didn't dare risk acting overtly until they were out of plain sight of the main walkway.

"Only if we get caught," the first one reassured her as he fiddled with the lock on the door. It seemed like small eternities passed with every clumsy fumble to try and open the door, and if any of her extreme impatience bled over to her facial expression, then hopefully the idiots would think it for the money, or maybe the possibility of jewelry. "Until then, it's about as safe as… why, as safe as being a street whore."

She tittered appreciatively at his unknowing joke, because in three seconds he was going to find out just how 'safe' his job actually was…

_Yes! _she inwardly cheered. The lock came undone and chains fell to the tile with a clatter that seemed to echo in the mostly deserted underground and the door swung open with the agonizing slowness of a dream. Together they stepped inside, Grunt Number Two copping a feel as they went. That was alright. He was going to be repaid for that in spades any second now.

"What a lovely store!" she said breathily. "In thanks for showing me… how 'bout I help with that loosening up I promised." She detached one of her earrings and then, only then, did they realize that there was something highly suspicious about a whore wandering the underground instead of cruising the Lowtown down by the Mart and the Center…

"Hey, just what do you think you're…"

"Gengar! Help me out with a Hypnosis attack!" she called out, throwing the pokeball. For once, the thing actually followed the order without the tiniest hint of a complaint, and the idiots were out like lights. "Phew! Ho-oh be thanked for the weak-minded and the witless."

-What on earth are you supposed to be almost dressed as?- Gengar asked, turning back and almost fading through the floor before it could suppress its surprise.

"Did you miss the whole 'live bait' argument I had with Cinder?" she hissed, summoning her trusty Typlosion. "Now, both of you do me a favor and check that crate outside. I'm going to see if I can find anything useful here," she replied, fishing through Grunt One's pocket to find his keyring.

-That'll be pretty hard to do without touching anything. I've seen the Pokemon that touch those crystals. They go _crazy. _I mean, totally, Zubat-guano _insane,_- Gengar nervously protested.

"I'm not asking you to touch anything! I'm asking Cinder to rip the top off that crate so you can look inside and tell me if the crystal's there and _I'll _pick it up! Now we only have an hour and we have at least two shops to search and those idiots could wake up any day now since Hypnosis isn't the most reliable technique in the world and let's get going already!"

-You are never allowed to say that much without taking a breath again,- Gengar told her leadenly.

-She's flustered,- Cinder replied sagely. -I think it's the outfit…-

"You! Search! Now!" she shouted, punctuating each word by gesturing strongly to the open door with her outstretched hand.

-…and now she's down to monosyllables. Wonderful. Let's leave before she burns the store down. Thank you, vapor brain, for pissing her off,- Cinder grumbled as they both exited the store.

-Hey, this is at least half your fault for bringing attention to that getup,- Gengar protested as the door slid halfway shut behind them, partially muffling the sound. She bypassed the display cases and the cash register, heading straight for the door that read 'Employees Only'. It only took three tries on the keyring before she found the key to get her in, and when the door opened she half fell into the back room.

_Okay, scratch back room, _she thought to herself, _make that more like back warehouse._

The room was huge, filled with crates, crates, and more crates. How could they possibly have gotten so many crates into the underground without someone noticing? How had they explained everything?

A furtive, desperate scan yielded a room marked 'Office. Keep Out.' in bright red letters. She let the keyring slide from her fingers and rushed over to it as quickly as she could manage in four inch heels. There was no point in even trying the other keys. No mere hired muscle would have the key to an office.

Running as close as she could get to full tilt, she threw her weight against the door hoping she wouldn't have to resort to drastic measures…

And fell promptly on her face. The door hadn't even been closed properly, let alone locked.

Blinking Hoothootishly as she tried to adjust to the light, she picked herself up and dusted off her 'clothing'. Bad enough that she'd had to dress like a whore to pull this off without looking as if she'd put a rough night in as one too.

A brief scan of the room revealed a computer monitor sans hardware, blank copying paper, and a safe with a note taped to it. Struck numb with surprise, she gently removed the note, letter really, and started to read.

_Dearest Miss Haldrien,_

_Welcome back to Goldenrod! I must say, I did not expect young Master Kelshin would mean so much to you for you to make this much effort! I have watched you assessing the situation for the last four days with a great deal of enjoyment. Did you know that you grind your teeth when you are especially frustrated?_

_If you are reading this, you must have managed to find a more subtle way into this store than the 'guns blazing' tactic you were so fond of as a youth when challenging Team Rocket. I congratulate you in your growth as a strategist, and I am looking forward to reviewing tonight's security tapes. I imagine they will be most amusing. Now, of course, it is time for me to address the matter over which you have attended me with your radiant presence. Your sneak thief's Aether Crystal – the new home for his soul – is in the safe that this note was attached to, and the combination to the lock is 22-17-34-06-00. I shall give you this small victory in granting me enough warning to evacuate the facilities before the Goldenrod police swarm them – for if you, my dear and naïve young friend, have managed to find this place it should not be much time before even those bumbling idiots are able to locate us. You may search the crates still within the building to your heart's content, I fear they are quite empty, as are those in Mic's Pokemon Accessories and The Cornerstop Ice Cream Parlor. No, the other two stores you are looking at have nothing to do with me, although the herb shop has a very interesting sideline that the authorities and the Pokemon League might disapprove of._

_It is my most sincere hope that we can end our business here, although from what I know of you there seems to be a certain – relentlessness – in your nature. Should you seek a misbegotten revenge for what has befallen your lover – I remind you that it is he who attempted to rob me of what I have created with my own research, funds, and backbreaking labor – I would warn you that you will not make out nearly as well as you did here. In fact, you will not even do as well as you did at the end of the Blackthorn incident. Suicune is no longer hovering over your shoulder to catch you when you fall. And if you continue in this business, Lady Azure, you will fall far._

_On that note I bid you adieu. May you enjoy the rest of your evening, morning, or whenever it is that you should find this letter._

_Most Respectfully Yours,_

_A Simple Businessman _

With the sort of meticulous care of someone standing on the brink of an avalanche, Crystal spun the combination and opened the lock and opened the safe. She grabbed at the bottom corner of the diaphanous robe she was wearing over her skimpy clothing and carefully extracted a silvery crystal swirled through with black and a collar made of goldish metal with a diamond-shaped insert made for the crystal that allowed it to stay in contact with the skin at all times when worn.

Immediately after she had retrieved the contents of the safe, the letter burst into flame.

* * *

_(Welcome to Saffron City. The end and very beginning of an adventure)

* * *

_

When Ria steeped out into the station and peeked at a Saffron just barely illuminated by a sky going to the dark blue of predawn, she first thought that she might still be in Goldenrod. Both cities had used a yellowish brick to build most of their buildings, giving everything a uniform sameness. However, judging by the skyscrapers raking across the skyline, Saffron was easily twice the size of Goldenrod.

"Come on!" Katia said joyfully. "First we're going to check into a hotel, and then we're going to wait for some of the shops to open up. The least we can do is get you some decent clothes. Um," she trailed off, blushing. "Not that your clothes are _bad _or anything…"

Ria snorted. "Please. They're all but falling off me and we both know it. There's no need to try and spare my feelings, I know _exactly _what I look like. It is my fondest dream to never have to wear anything I have been forced to take a needle to ever again. I am a _horrible _sewer… as you can clearly see," she replied, twirling in an exaggerated circle to model her butchered skirt.

"Um yes, well… why don't the two of you sit here, and I'll just go get us some drinks and early morning snacks out of the vending machine," Norman offered, sensing that the topic of conversation was veering off into the realm of feminine things that he was ill suited for.

"You do that dear. Ria, do you have any preferences for food?"

"I cannot digest meat. Anything else would be fine," she replied, hoping that she didn't sound _too _eager for food. The grilled vegetables and rolls that she'd bought from Crystal Haldrien's hotel seemed like a distant memory, although she knew it had probably only been three or four hours. Still, although she felt like she could eat a Rapidash, she knew she could not afford to try. First of all, her stomach was not used to actually being fed as much as it clamored for, and eating her fill would probably make her sick. Secondly, she did not want to strain the hospitality she had been offered, not when she had nothing to give in return.

_I am like a child given a rikshara, a glass doll. I am too afraid of breaking it to play with it at all, _she scolded herself, doubly so for sliding back into the sacred tongue. That language might as well be dead to her. Although she still retained a fraction of her power, the sacred incantations had not answered her since she had selfishly abandoned her duties to see the human world….

A twinge deep in her lower abdomen scattered her thoughts. _No, _she moaned within the safety of her own mind._ By the sacred flame of the Rainbow Altar… not now. Please not now. I still have time! Two weeks yet, surely, to try and regain some strength. One week. Even five days. Just a little time to rest and recover, so I can be there for my daughter or son, _she begged the cold, unfeeling universe, although she secretly suspected that she was going to have a daughter. She had felt that the baby would be a girl for quite some time…

Perhaps something out there had decided to take mercy on her. The pain vanished.

"Is something wrong, Ria?"

"No. Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine now," she said with a smile. Still the pain did not return, and now she allowed herself to melt back onto the bench in relief. _Everything really is fine, _she thought to herself, leaning back and allowing her eyes to slide shut without fear of not waking for the first time in months. _I do not know why, but these people really do want to help me… perhaps they cannot have children of their own, and wish to help me raise mine?_ Thinking about it, it made a great deal more sense then randomly offering her kindness. She could live with that. It was a more, well, human reason to want to help her.

"Oh, good," Katia sighed, relieved. "So, once we're done shopping for you, maybe you'd like to pick out some baby clothes too?" she asked eagerly, as if this was something she'd been wanting to do herself for quite some time, cementing Ria's decision in her mind. Not that she would be rude enough to embarrass Katia by asking.

"That would be wonderful," Ria sighed. "Still… everything seems so surreal. This time yesterday I was too busy worrying about when they were going to get me, where my next meal was coming from, to think of much else. I haven't been able to think ahead in quite some time." For example, what was she going to name her daughter? Sharein would be part of the name somehow, the trainer Crystal might never know of the honor being paid to her, but it would make her feel better about all the aide she had accepted from the woman. It was really too bad that she did not know what Katia meant, or perhaps she could name her daughter after the woman who was helping her now as well…

They chattered on about baby clothing and toys for several more minutes before Norman came back with sandwiches and drinks in cans.

"For myself and Katia I have roast beef and cheese. For Ria… how does peanut butter and jelly sound?"

"Delicious," she told him, and was surprised to discover it to be true. She had never had much taste for peanut butter before becoming pregnant, but it would not be the most bizarre food she had found herself craving. Once she had become absolutely ravenous over _sushi. _It was meat! She could not even eat it!

The sandwiches were passed around, the caned drinks (they turned out to be lemonade) were handed out, and they settled down to an early breakfast.

_This is heaven, _she thought, ravenously devouring her sandwich. _Or, as close to it as I will find here._ Once the sandwich was gone, she licked traces of peanut butter off her fingers. Neither Norman nor Katia seemed to notice or care about her horrible manners. _This is…_

A second twinge in her lower abdomen drove the thought from her head, along with the feeling of peaceful contentment she had been experiencing. "No," she moaned, clutching her stomach and already starting to feel nauseous. She was going to regret having eaten. "Not now… this is not fair…"

"What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Norman asked. She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes and smiled a bitter smile.

"No. The baby is coming."

"What? Now?" he gasped.

"We have to get you to a hospital!" Katia quickly added.

"No hospitals!" Ria shouted, drawing stares from the few people in the rail station at this hour. "No hospitals," she repeated at a more reasonable volume. "I cannot afford to go to a hospital."

"If it's a question of money, we'd be more than happy to…"

"It is not a question of money, it is a question of safety," Ria sighed. "If I go to a hospital, the baby will be seized either by Team Rocket or by the very people helping with the birth for medical study. No hospitals."

"No hospitals," Katia agreed, caving in under Ria's insistence.

"But Katia…"

"No hospitals, Norman," she told him as if issuing a command, her blue eyes going icy.

"…fine, fine, you have me convinced. No hospitals." Just then, as if the universe itself had decided to take a hand in mocking them, several uniformed policemen swept through in the direction of the rail car and they all started in surprise. They had forgotten about the Rockets they'd left there. "And it seems that time is at a premium. Very well. An old friend of mine set up a medical practice in Saffron a couple years back, and I still have his number. We'll have him help us privately. Would that be okay?" he asked as he ushered the two ladies to the door.

"It will have to be okay," she replied while bracing herself as best she could against another contraction. She didn't know when exactly it would come, but it would be soon. And it would be followed by another, and another, until…

_Don't think about it. Think about baby names. You still don't have a name yet, and you're running out of time…_

For the second time that day, Ria began to cry.

* * *

_(An Ecruteak Mansion. What the road to Hell is paved with, and the people who give you the cement…)

* * *

_

Slender, almost skeletal fingers drummed a frenetic cadence on the banister as dark blue eyes glared so fixedly ahead it almost seemed, to the casual observer, that there should be a smoking molten hole in the window he was staring through. The sun was just beginning to break out from behind the trees and the sky was a truly beautiful thing to behold, but it was doubtful that the man noticed.

"Mr. Verandi?" came the hesitant inquiry. Ever since he'd forced his personal doctor into an early retirement over the… accident with Alucard, his medical assistants had been more than hesitant around him, especially when it came to this particular issue. Terrified might be a better adjective. Or, if one insisted on being basely crude, scared shitless.

"Well?"

"The child is female, and she's perfectly normal and healthy, sir. She'll be a beautiful girl, worthy of the Verandi name," gushed one of the doctors. The man allowed himself a brief flicker of disappointment, he had really been hoping for a boy, a boy to replace the heir that the… accident had ruined. But a girl, properly raise, might make an even better heir than a boy. Women all had a primal vicious streak buried within their nurturing natures, and with proper coaching that vicious streak could easily be brought to the surface. His wife, Deidre, was certainly living proof of that.

"Very good, now take me to her," he replied, and the medical staff almost seemed to melt with relief, all but tripping over themselves in their haste to comply with his wishes. The horror stories filtering thought the hired help about what Deidre had done to the people who had been responsible for Alucard's 'accident' still seemed to have a grip on the hearts and minds of those who worked for him. All the better for them, really. She had been notoriously violent as an assassin, and going through the experimental procedure had only worsened that facet of her personality. In addition to that, Alucard's condition had somewhat unbalanced her mind, turning the possibility of her killing anyone who threatened her child – be it out of true intent, incompetence, or simple ignorance – into the closest thing to a certainty he had ever encountered. Also, Deidre's chances of having another child were so low it wasn't even worth the time to calculate them. She would probably be a bit more than overprotective of this new girl.

Finally, they reached the birthing room. Deidre's blood red hair clung to her skin, matted with sweat from the effort of giving birth. Her dark red eyes were half closed in contentment as a small newborn fed eagerly at her breast. All that he could see of his new daughter from this angle was a fuzz of dark, maybe black hair. He allowed himself a brief moment of nostalgia. His mother had had black hair like that. "Have you chosen a name for the child, dearest, or shall I?"

"Lisha," she panted with a beatific grin. "Her name will be Lisha Delilah Verandi."

Lisha. The darkness before midnight. A perfect name for a Verandi.

"A beautiful name, suiting of our heir," he said, leaning over to kiss her brow. As he did, his daughter looked up from her feeding with beautiful silvery gray eyes, the same color as his own, and he fancied that she smiled at him. He once more allowed himself a brief moment of affection as he stroked the top of her head and smiled. She was indeed a beautiful child…

"Mother? Father? Is it alright for me to come in now?" six year old Alucard asked hesitantly from behind the door to the birthing room.

"It is alright, dearest, the blood has been cleaned up now. You may enter," his wife assured their son. The door creaked open, and the child slipped into the room so cautiously that he seemed frightened that his presence might break something.

Alucard was pale and slender, with his father's dark violet hair and his mother's red eyes. Something about the dimensions of his features lent an air of innocence to his face that would serve him well if it held into later years. All he needed to do was lose that hesitance, as if he could break the most precious of things by simply breathing on them, and he would be a fine support to his sister. But Ricardo couldn't seem to bring himself to lecture the boy tonight. Tomorrow would be more than time enough. "Your sister has been born healthy. Her name is Lisha Delilah."

A smile blossomed across little Alucard's face. "That is good." He took a few more hesitating steps over to the bed. "May I… touch her?" he asked.

Ricardo looked over to Deidre, who nodded firmly, and beckoned her son over. Little Lisha looked up at her brother with those solemn gray eyes of hers, and he reached out a hand. She held up her own and weakly seized a finger. It was almost as if the siblings were making a pact to guard and protect one another.

"Alucard, it is your duty as her brother to watch over her," Deidre said somberly.

"I swear I will," he replied earnestly. And perhaps Ricardo's imagination was playing tricks on him once more, but he could swear little Lisha was smiling.

* * *

_(On the outskirts of Saffron city, kiss the sunset goodbye.)

* * *

_

The sun was beginning to sink behind the trees of Tristan's remote cottage outside the city, and Ria's birthing screams sounded like one continuous wail to him. Surely the baby would be coming any moment now. He couldn't stand that sound much longer. He had known that childbirthing was painful, but this… and Katia had _wanted _a baby, had wanted to all but sign herself up for this…! _Women are crazy, _he decided. Katia was still in there holding Ria's hand and murmuring comforting words, and he didn't know how she could stand it. All that screaming, all the blood…

The blood wouldn't normally have bothered him. He was a Trainer, and when pokemon battled they got hurt. It was a fact of life. But one and all, injured pokemon bled the same color that humans did. Not Ria Anasera, though. Her blood was a bizarre pearly white, like spilled cream. The color turned his stomach as normal blood never had, and the poor woman didn't need to see the disgust that he could not hide. It was there, to his shame, and he could not hide it.

"Ret," his Furret stated flatly, butting its bandaged head against his leg, as if it had picked up on his melancholy mood and was telling him to get over himself. He'd treated it for the injures it had taken battling Team Rocket. It seemed fine, but it had gotten sludge in most of its injuries from that damn Wheezing and the Serviper's bite could be nasty. He just hoped that the Antidote he'd lathered on its injuries would be enough to keep them from getting infected until he could get it to a Pokemon Center…

One final, piercing wail, and then a silence that seemed to echo ominously in the fading light.

"Is it over?" he asked the Furret, but the creature could only shrug its thin shoulders in reply. As if to answer his question, a thin, reedy wail replaced Ria's screaming

"It's a girl," Tristan pronounced. "And as far as I can tell with no equipment, born healthy." Norman rushed back into the room to see a small bundle wrapped in blankets being held up to a sweat soaked and spectrally white Ria.

"Do you… have a name?" Katia asked hesitantly. Norman could see why. It was obvious, despite his friend's best efforts, that Ria was dying.

"Her true name will be Riandriel Sharein, as mine is Diahandria Kosel among my people," Ria murmured like a woman talking in her sleep as she held up her child to nurse for the first and last time. "The name she will bear in this world will be Terra, for she was born of earth and will return to earth when she dies, as humans do" Her arms seemed to glow briefly for a moment as two tears slid down her cheeks and struck the face of the nursing child. The tears, when they hit, evaporated to steam with a brief hiss, and when they were gone the glowing died. "For the future of this, my only child, I see darkness, strife, and chaos, although I cannot warn of more than that. It lies beyond the Meran Sea, far to the west, where my eyes cannot see. I can only pray for her safety…." She trailed off, raising her head with some effort to look Katia in the eye. "Will you care for my child as you would your own?"

"Of course," Katia said.

"Then the moment I breathe my last, she is yours to keep," Ria said, and there was a brief but brilliant flare of power that left Ria coughing and gasping for air. The child at her breast continued to nurse, unconcerned.

"Save your strength! Don't talk anymore!" Katia pleaded.

"There is nothing left… to save it for…" Ria panted. She raised her head further to look Norman in the face. "You must burn my body once I am dead. It is the way of my people."

"It will also make your death all but impossible to confirm," Norman added in understanding.

"And it will keep them… from cutting me to pieces to see how I work," she gasped in agreement before collapsing against the pillows. Her breath came in rapid, shallow gasps.

"We can still… if we took her to a hospital, I'm sure we could do something for her," Tristan protested, distraught. Norman had applied a fair amount of verbal arm twisting to get him to agree to this, when it wasn't even the type of medicine he practiced.

"What would you do, give her a blood transfusion? How much good would that do someone like her?" Norman asked softly. Ria's breathing was starting to slow, but it wasn't getting any deeper. That was bad. He had no knowledge of medicine, but even he could tell that that was bad.

"I…I… we could do _something!_" he pleaded, trying to deny what he was seeing.

Little Riandriel – Terra – stopped suckling, and Katia readjusted her so that Ria was merely holding her. As she did, both men caught a glimpse of the child's eyes…

Blue. The exact same shade of blue as Katia's own eyes.

"When I delivered that baby, her eyes were golden," Tristan said breathily as if he might faint.

"I believe you," Norman replied. And he could easily understand why Team Rocket had been pursuing Ria so insistently. The woman had held power, once. And Team Rocket craved that type of incomprehensible power.

Ria's breathing slowed to nothing, and she exhaled all her breath in a breathy hiss. Her chest did not rise again. Tristan moved over to check her pulse with an expression on his face that said, plainly, that he did not expect to find one.

The sun set.

Little Terra's baby blue eyes snapped open and she began to wail, heart-wrenching sobs that seemed to cut through the soul.

* * *

Finally! Finished the prologue edit! (faints)(cries over killing off Ria)(faints again)

I wonder if anyone out there has the patience to read a Pokemon fic this long…

If the Pokeworld currency works like Japanese yen, and has the same conversion rate to dollars (Which I think it does, that would put the water from the vending machines at about a buck seventy five, which I think is reasonable for water from a large city), then three thousand is only a little over twenty-five dollars.

Yeah, trainers make chump change. The only money in pokemon training is in tournaments, or in becoming a really famous trainer, breeding your pokemon off and selling off their offspring. Can you blame Quartz for turning thief?

Oh, and in case you didn't notice, it is custom in Ria's culture to give your child both their individual name, and the name of a family member or someone who aided the mother during her pregnancy. It is a very high honor in that culture.

The edit turned the prologue into a true monster justified in being split in half. But I don't regret it. Now I have something that resembles a plotline. That makes me happy.

After all the effort I put into this, maybe someone will review it? (looks naively hopeful)


	3. First Chapter: Meet

Have I ever mentioned I hate QuickEdit with a firey passion?

Some text that was deleted for some unknown reason has been restored. It does nothing to change the flow of the story, just the sort of personal formatting issues that drive me, the author, utterly stark raving mad.

* * *

First Chapter: Meet

_(location unknown)_

* * *

She didn't know where she was, but it felt like some sort of room, only without walls. Just a floor and a ceiling. The space was utterly dark, too dark for her to make out even the outline of her hand when she waved it in front of her face and touched her nose. Ironically, there was some illumination, a band of yellow across the ceiling (which is why the space made her think of a room), but the light it cast seemed to be swallowed up before it could filter down and give some definition to the space she was stuck in. 

_Stay or go forward? _she wondered. She certainly didn't want to be stuck in this place, but who knew if there were holes or spikes or other nasty things in the inky pitch darkness?

A patch of ground started to glow as if there was a spotlight hidden inside the floor, still showing light somehow without casting it as well. If she could have seen enough to make sure that she wouldn't put her eyes out by accident, she would have started tearing out her hair in frustration. The light shined even brighter for a moment, and…

"Hi! Sorry to keep you waiting!"

"YAAAH!" she screamed, jumping back a pace, tripping, and landing unceremoniously on her butt. The floor felt like smooth stone or glass, but even with that damn spot glowing on the floor like a floodlight, all that precious shine only seemed to go straight up, not outward. She could vaguely make out a man in a white lab coat, although he looked more like a hippie than any scientist she'd ever seen pictures of in magazines or on the news. He had shaggy brown hair and a beard that both looked in need of a trim, and the gray shirt and cargo shorts he wore under his coat looked more suited for a bout of tree-hugging in the Ilex or Viridian forests, rather than doing any serious work. And… yes, he was wearing flip-flops! What kind of self-respecting scientist wore flip-flops?

"Welcome to the world of pokemon!" he continued, ignoring her.

"World of… what the hell are you talking about? This is Earth, and…"

"My name is Birch," he informed her cheerfully, as if he hadn't just cut her off yet again.

"You know what this, this is one of those things where you take your insecurities over your lousy name out on me. Well, it's not funny. Find someone else to-"

"But everyone calls me the Pokemon Professor."

"HOLY HO-OH, WILL YOU STOP INTERRUPTING ME!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Nothing. Not even so much as a twitch. Was he deaf or something?

"This is what we call a 'Pokemon'," he continued, pulling out a Poke Ball. A burst of light revealed an Azurill, which started smiling and bouncing around as if to placate her with its cuteness as if she were a little, daft child to be easily distracted by the adorable bouncing mouse.

"Is this supposed to be some sort of a joke?" she asked far, far too softly. "What kind of fool doesn't know what a pokemon is? Even an idiot knows what a pokemon is! Little children and senile old men can recognize them on sight! What kind of a mentally challenged fool do you think I am?" The last question came out in an enraged, ear splitting shriek. Birch didn't even blink at her, and the damn Azurill continued to bounce, and trill out "Rull! Azurill!" at random intervals.

"This world is widely inhabited by creatures known as pokemon," he continued, as if he was talking to a preschooler. She had to forcibly stop herself from verbally retaliating. It wasn't as if everything she'd said before had had any effect whatsoever. "We humans live alongside Pokemon at times as friendly playmates, and at times as cooperative workmates. And sometimes, we band together and battle others like us." _I wonder, if I kill him, can I leave?_ Desperate times did call for desperate measures… and who would miss someone named after a tree, anyway?"But despite our closeness, we don't know everything about pokemon." _At least I wouldn't have to listen to Captain Birch the Obvious anymore… _"In fact, there are many, many secrets surrounding pokemon. To unravel pokemon mysteries, I've been undertaking research. That's what I do."

"Not anymore you don't!" she announced. Not that announcing that you were going to attack someone was a smart idea, but he hadn't heard anything she'd said before, and…

"Ow!" she yelped as she bounced off of something that felt like a solid sheet of plastic. Dazed, she saw nothing between her and the source of her torment but a circle of light. Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, she reached out with a hesitant hand and felt something like a wall of nothing. Either there was some sort of barrier that she couldn't see, or light was solid in this… where the heck was she, anyway?

"And you are?" he asked her. As he spoke the words a circle of light materialized around her while his drifted off into the distance, fading rapidly out of sight "Are you a boy or a girl?" Even though she couldn't see him, he still sounded like he was right next to her. Or behind her…

"Are you blind AND senile?" she hissed, dancing around the circle trying to locate him. With the way her luck was running today, he was probably some sort of psychotic stalker. "No, I look like this and I'm a _boy_."

"Okay, what's your name?" She looked askance at him and then looked down at herself. She was now wearing a black and red jacket, and she…

"NOOOO! I'm a girl, a girl! My name is Terra Laurel Boyden! I am a girl, a girl I tell you! I am…"

* * *

_(Littleroot, inside a moving truck. Beware of falling objects...)_

"…girl, a girl I say! Change me back you evil old man…!"

Katia sighed, unclipping one of the blue barrettes that kept her bangs out of her eyes and readjusting it to capture a stray strand that had been getting in her eyes. Only Terra could sleep on a moving truck, but if she didn't stop flailing around she was going to make one of those stacks of boxes fall on her.

"Terra? Terra honey, we're here!" she called out to her daughter from the safety of the door of the truck. Terra sat up with a gasp and somehow managed to knock into the stack of boxes that she had already hit several times while thrashing, sending the entire stack careening down. With a strangled eeping noise, she lunged forward and managed to avoid getting squashed by falling boxes, landing half on the ramp, half on the floor of the truck with a disgruntled expression on her face. Blue eyes, only a shade brighter than her mother's, glared up from underneath a cheerful pale red (NOT pink) bandanna printed with white pokeballs.

"I don't know how, but this is your fault," she snapped irritably while straightening her red bandana. "Just because you wanted to talk to that hot mover guy, you stuck me in the back with the boxes! It's not fair! I'm going to tell Dad that you were flirting with him!"

"Terra, that is enough! We were two adults having a pleasant conversation, and I'm far too old to be in the back with all those boxes…"

"Mom, relax, I was only teasing you," sighed Terra. Her mom was blushing like a schoolgirl. She hadn't been serious when she'd said that, nothing had happened between her mom and John the Mover Guy… right? "I just had a really, really strange dream. Oh, and I was almost killed by boxes. No big deal, really…"

Katia snorted and rolled her eyes, but on the inside she was wincing. Terra could have been seriously hurt if the boxes had fallen on her… _I knew it was a bad idea to put her in the back…_ "You see these, girl?" she asked, holding up a fistful of shoulder-length dark chestnut hair just beginning to show streakings of silver. "You gave me all these pulling crazy stunts."

"I didn't make those crates almost fall on me…" Terra protested, annoyed.

Katia waved that aside, an inconsequential detail in the chain of events. "And how did you ruin your hair, then?"

"I… I did not 'ruin' my hair, I like it the way it is," she lied. She had lost almost all of her hair just last week when a wild Gloom she'd been feeding was startled by a swarm of Spearow taking off. One razor leaf attack later, and…

Well, she really did like her hair, all short in the back with two tails that hung down cutely in the front. It looked better this way (and was far easier to take care of) then when it had been down to her waist.

"Anything wrong, ladies?" John the Mover Guy asked, rounding the truck with false concern written on every like of his face.

"Near miss with… the books and the glasses, I think. Oh Snorlax, that box that fell from the very top is the one from my room! Goodbye computer and alarm clock…"

"Don't worry about your stuff, little missy, we use extra packaging for things like that," John the Mover Guy assured her with a cheap movie star grin. _Ugh, how cheesy. I guess I really was better off in the back._

"Terra honey, it'll take some time for the movers to be finished. The box with your books in it is right over there, I could just have it opened up and…"

"I'd rather explore the town!" Terra protested.

Katia visibly hesitated. "I don't know, honey… we just got here, and…"

"Come on Mom, this place is microscopic. There's no way anything bad could happen to me in such a small town," she wheedled while inwardly making plans to slip off if need be. Her parents were positively phobic over letting her wander around by herself in new places. It was as if they were afraid she'd either get lost or vanish like smoke the moment she dropped out of their sight. And even when they did let her off her short leash they were almost fanatical about checking up on her. It was the sort of thing that could drive a person crazy after a while.

"Well… the Birches live next door. Do you remember them? Wait, no of course you don't, you were little more than a baby the last time we saw them. They have a son about your age, so why don't you go visit them?"

"Okay," Terra sighed. In the never ending battle for breathing space, even a small victory was to be cherished, but in a town the size of Littleroot this was truly a small one._ Birch, Birch, that name sounds familiar… maybe something from that creepy dream I just had? I've already forgotten most of it._ She wandered off away from the truck and truly looked at the little town… no, village… for the first time. Littleroot was _small._ Much smaller than anywhere they had lived before, when her father was still moving all over the place as a traveling trainer. There were twenty small houses lined up on what passed for main street, a tiny, locally run convenience store on one corner, a slightly larger school building on the other, and, a little further up the (dear holy Ho-oh) _dirt _road, there was a building about twice the size of the houses, probably the lab that she'd heard about. Hell, there wasn't even a _Pokemon Center!_ EVERYWHERE had a Pokemon Center!

"Oh, my, Mew. We are officially in the sticks," she muttered. Were there even a hundred people in this little flyspeck of a town? She strongly doubted it. With a world-weary sigh she trudged up to the house next to hers and knocked halfheartedly. At least once she got inside, she wouldn't have to look at how minuscule the town was. Even the forest outside town had a clichéd 'Pigey are singing and the Sentret are romping' feeling to it. She had gotten used to seeing something new and exciting every day when traveling with her father. This place was… tame. That was the word she was looking for. She hadn't had much of a chance to deal with tameness in her short lifetime, and she could already tell that she was going to hate it. _If we had to stay in a town for a long time, why couldn't we have just remained in Fuchsia?_ They'd been living there for nearly six months before coming here. That was the longest she could ever remember having stayed in one place. _Or we could have moved to Goldenrod! They have a Normal gym in Goldenrod._ But Gym Leaders were appointed for life, unless they were promoted to Master rank upon the death of an Elite Four member, and Whitney didn't seem to be in any danger of kicking the bucket any time soon. In Petalburg, her father had a shot at a steady and decent wage, something they hadn't had any reason to hope for in the past. Her parents weren't kids anymore, it was time for them to settle down. She should try to be happy, at least for their sake.

_Okay, happy thoughts, _she told herself as she waited on the front stoop. _I wonder what the Birches' son is like. It would certainly be nice to have a friend for a change, _she thought to herself, trying very hard to find an upside to the situation.She had never lived in one place long enough to really have a friend. She had an easy enough time picking up people to hang out with when they stopped in the same town for more than a few days at a time, but she'd never really stayed in touch with anyone long enough to really have a friend. Even the kids she'd hung out with in Fuchsia were already rapidly fading memories, and she doubted that they were missing her that badly at the moment either. It seemed that even if she could find the same people if they came back to the same town, that they had changed completely, while she… hadn't.

The door was opened by a woman with curly light brown hair cascading down to her waist and cheery green eyes. "Brendan, if you could just… oh, I'm sorry. You're obviously not who I was expecting. I'm Isolde Birch… are you new in Littleroot?" she asked.

"I'm Terra Boyden. My family and I just moved in next door."

"Ah, you're Katia and Norman's kid! Tristan and I were married shortly after you were born. You were even there at the wedding… not that you remember something that happened when you were that little."

"Sorry but no," she said politely, thankfully grateful that she wasn't going to be questioned over things that she had been far too young to commit to memory.

"Well don't just stand there on the stoop! Feel free to come in!" the woman offered cheerfully.

"I, ah, thank you, Mrs. Birch," she replied, stepping inside and taking off her much-worn traveling shoes. "I was told you had a kid my age…"

"You mean Brendan?" she asked just as a timer went off in the background. "Goodness, the muffins! I completely forgot about them!"

"Go ahead," Terra offered with a smile. "It's alright, I understand…" The words were barely out of her mouth before Mrs. Birch was rushing off to rescue her treats. _Wow, that's just like Mom. I wonder if they watch the same sort of TV shows when they're supposed to be baking?_

"By the way, Brendan's out right now. He likes to help his father out with field work." A laugh echoed from the kitchen. "Honestly, they get so into it sometimes it's more like having two children instead of one."

Terra smiled, thinking of times when her own mother had been forced to start banging pots to call her and her father to dinner when they'd really gotten into strategy and training. "I can understand that."

"I'm not really complaining, though," Isolde said as she gingerly shifted the cookies from the baking sheet onto cooling racks that she'd set out earlier. Terra's mouth watered as the sent of warm, gooey butterscotch… _Oh, she made Oatmeal Scotchies and they're not cool enough to eat! Not fair! _"after all, ever since he started this whole research thing he's been so much happier. Sure, he made much better money as a doctor… but he was miserable. Now I think he's doing something that he feels is worthwile."

"Huh?" _Doctor, Pokemon researcher… that's a fairly large jump. What changed his mind? _"Why the change?"

"To be perfectly honest, he's never really told me. Right before we got married, he just up and announced to everyone that there were bigger mysteries outside the operating room, and he wanted to be out there finding them. Everyone was shocked, but I think they were even more surprised when I didn't pitch a fit and call off the marriage on the spot." She snorted indignantly at the very thought. "As if I only loved him for the money he was poised to make. If he _had _stayed a doctor, I'd see even less of him then I do now. I was actually grateful when he announced the change."

_Right before they got married… isn't that around the time I was born? And why does that seem significant? _she wondered to herself. She banished that niggling something as best she could, writing it off as one of her odder fancies. "So, if he's not around, where do you suggest that I try to find him?" she asked out loud, wondering what he might be like. An image of a gawkish boy with large glasses and a Butterfree net popped unbidden into her head. _Ugh, I remember that kid! He was a creep! Brendan's probably nothing like that at all! _Her brain helpfully turned bug-hunting kakis lab coat white, substituted some complicated mechanical detection equipment for the net, and gleefully added buck teeth and bad acne to the face. _I hate you, brain, _she snarled angrily at it._ We _like_ the intellectual type, remember?_

But of course there was no response. Only crazy people got responses when they tried to talk to themselves. And she wasn't _quite _crazy yet. She'd need at least another week in this town before she became that desperate.

"He might be in the lab. I'm sure you've seen it already if you've had a chance to do any looking around… it's probably the biggest building here. Don't get your hopes up, though… Brendan and Tristan do a lot of field work, so chances are good that they won't even be there at all."

"Okay, thank you…" she replied, pushing away from the kitchen table with no small amount of relief at having escaped from the company of yet another adult. _If they ARE outside town, at least it would be an excuse for some decent exploring, _she silently consoled herself. "Maybe if they're not around I could swing by and wait here, with some of those delicious-smelling cookies for company?"

"Butterscotch addict, are you?" Isolde asked with a laugh. "Well, at least there'll be someone around to stop Brendan from inhaling them all. I _swear, _that boy is going to get fat if he keeps on eating sweets like there's no tomorrow…"

* * *

The pokemon lab was singularly unimpressive. Other than being twice the size of the other buildings in Littleroot, it could have easily been mistaken for a slightly more prosperous house. In fact, judging by the trimmings and the front porch, it _had _been a slightly more prosperous house once in the not-so-distant past. Only the peeling sign proclaiming the Lab differentiated it from the other buildings. _That, and the… holy Ho-oh, that's a Rover_. The bright red, fuel-guzzling four wheeled monster parked in the dirt lot of the lab stuck out like a sore thumb. Only someone who sweated solid gold pellets could afford the precious oil to keep something like that operational. _Fossil fuels were almost completely used up over a century and a half ago… now only the rich can afford to use them. Even most cities run off of the power generated by Electric pokemon or, if they're really on the cutting edge, solar power, and have for quite a while. Not to mention that petroleum is noxious as all hell and most wild pokemon will attack things that emit it as encroachers on their territory._ Someplace as tame as the area around Littleroot seemed to be probably wouldn't be all that bad, but four wheeled transportation really wasn't practical in most areas of any continent. Sure, they'd been able to get a moving van to bring their stuff, but that was only because the League had been willing to pay for it. Otherwise it would have been well outside her father's modest salary. _What are people who can afford to drive something like that doing in a place like this? _she couldn't help but wonder as she forced her feet to drag her body past the brilliant red marvel and into the lab. 

The inside of the building looked much more like what she expected from a research lab. What had once been the front hall was now lined with bookshelves crammed with books, little multicolored fluorescent strips of paper hastily marked with notes flagging almost every book. Through a side door she could glimpse several computers that appeared to be monitoring something, as strings of incomprehensible numbers scrolled endlessly across the screen, making her head spin unpleasantly before she jerked her eyes away. Still, even with all the obvious changes, a house was a house, and the lab still had a pervasively… _homey_ feeling to it. She'd visited the lab in New Bark Town (more like snuck inside and begged the professor in charge to give her a starter pokemon and let her start her journey, but for the sake of her pride she would call it visiting) and it hadn't been much bigger than this, but it had _felt _like a lab. _Well, you saw the car outside, maybe they're here to give this lab a grant? _The first thing they could fix was the paint job, for it was sad and in need of immediate surgery if it was to survive A closer look into the main room discouraged that theory almost immediately; because she didn't see anyone who looked like a chief lab professor eagerly trying to convince the moneyed folks to part with vast sums of cash. Instead, she saw a male lab assistant who appeared to be in his late twenties trying to placate an increasingly annoyed set of individuals who looked like they made more money then anyone in this place would see in a lifetime.

"I apologize Mr. Verandi, but you did arrive ahead of schedule, the professor will be here shortly to finish your daughter's registration…"

"He had best come soon," the man interjected icily. "I was in the middle of serious business negotiations in Slateport, and I will be highly annoyed if I must lose a day over whatever it is that this petty mock-up of a lab is calling research…"

Someone who would normally make Terra groan over the excesses of the upper class made her shudder instead. He was slender, with finely-formed features beginning to show the first traces of wrinkles and violet hair beginning to pick up feathery wings of gray at the temples. His tailored dove gray suit, too warm for early summer, should have made him look more pampered and harmless, not imposing. He _didn't _look imposing, not really. But there was something about his piercing silver eyes and the way his too-thin fingers drummed impatiently on a desk that made her inexplicably uneasy. She almost never got that sort of feeling about a person after having seen them for only a few moments and started backing off to the side, ready to make a quick exit if necessary but not yet ready to stop looking. These people were probably the only interesting thing that was going to happen in Littleroot for a long, long time. The daughter he had been talking about registering (she was the only person in the room that could be a daughter) looked down at sneakers so new and obviously expensive that they seemed to shine with their real-leather glory and shifted from foot to foot, biting her lip. It was painfully obvious that she either wished that _she _was somewhere else, or that the rest of her family was. Her slender shoulders and instinctively defensive stance gave off the sort of 'squeeze me, I'm cute' vibe that had drawn Terra into losing arguments time and time again over what her parents lovingly referred to as her 'hero complex'. How was she going to survive her training journey? Could she even find food without the help of five different servants? Could she… _Woah, back up, Boyden. Not your problem. And can't be your problem. You'd have a better chance of sprouting wings and flying into the sun than you would convincing your parents to let you go on your own journey,_ Terra reminded herself with a sigh that felt, to her, as if it issued from the core of her being. Sure, her dad had run away from home at the tender age of twelve to begin fulfilling his dream of becoming a Gym Leader, and here she was, fourteen years and two months old, and her parents had just barely begun to allow her to wander within the limits of even a tiny place like Littleroot without escorting her or hovering like mother Pigeot with a clutch of newly-laid eggs! They were impossible!

_Okay, less getting pissed over things you can't do anything about and more surveying the room, _she told herself. An older woman rested a shapely hand on his forearm, murmuring soothing something in the businessman's ear to try and calm his impatience. She certainly didn't look like the sort of person to be settling disputes. Her frame was all bone and sinew, finely toned to the peak of physical fitness. With her blood-red curly hair and piercing crimson eyes, she looked more like a goddess of war than any mere mortal, even with the first hints of crows' feet tugging at the corners of her eyes and a few rebellious strands of steely gray infecting the scarlet perfection of her mane. _She must have been a knockout when she was younger_, Terra thought with a brief spark of jealousy. Oh sure, she had a pretty face and she managed her limbs far better than most teenagers her age seemed to, but she was still at the stage of growing where her body still looked like a thing of hastily cobbled together legs and arms without any real womanly curves, only the tiniest hopeful hints of a bust and hips. Her mother kept reassuring her that she would grow into her body eventually, but _eventually _just seemed to be getting farther and farther away rather then closer. Now, if only she could become a Trainer…

This time she stuck out her jaw when she sighed, angling the burst of air so that it went under her bandanna and caused it to puff up slightly. More then anything else she wanted to become a pokemon trainer like her father. Well, maybe not just like her father, she wanted to have lots of different types of pokemon. But what she really wanted to do more than anything else was to travel, to see as many different things as she could and find friends of her own for a change. It hadn't been so bad when they had been living on the road, but the longer they stayed in one place the antsier she seemed to become. The mere thought of spending the next four years in Littleroot was nearly enough to make her contemplate tearing out the rest of her hair.

"A few days' delay might be good for you," a young man suggested to the businessman. "It seemed to me that our people needed a few more days to perfect the next stage of the product."

Terra clapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from gasping and giving herself away. A young man with shoulder-length violet hair, much like his father's, leaned into her field of vision. His dark red eyes seemed to convey a very high level of intelligence and something about his high cheekbones and refined features seemed to speak to her of a certain nobility of spirit. Sure, the navy blue turtlenecked top and pale blue blazer were probably too hot for the weather, but he looked… he looked…

_Well now, isn't this intelligent, drooling over a guy that you've never even seen before who probably wouldn't look at you twice? _she sneered at herself, turning on the heel of her shoe and stalking out of the lab. Better to leave now before she did something truly stupid. Like staring at the brother until her eyes fell out of her head. Or, worse yet, trying to talk to him. _Wow, and can't I just picture _that _conversation. 'Hi, my name is Terra, do you already have a girlfriend? Do you need another one?'_ She snorted in disgust at herself. _Maybe there's a river around here or something. It would give me something pretty to look at, and maybe I could take a dunk to clear my head… I should be fine as long as Mom doesn't catch me._ Sneaking away wouldn't be too hard. She'd done it all the time in Fuchsia. Granted, Littleroot was a great deal smaller than Fuchsia, but it shouldn't be that much harder, especially with John the Mover Guy to provide such a good-looking distraction…

She was about halfway to the edge of town when she heard a scream.

"Tauros dung," she hissed to herself, her gaze snapping to the gate out of the village where some little kids had begun to gather, up on their tiptoes and leaning as if the open gate was a wall they couldn't cross. "Out of the way, kids!" she shouted as she elbowed through.

"You can't go out there!" one of the kids protested, grabbing onto her leather belt. "The wild pokemon will eat you!"

"The wild pokemon won't bother you unless you make a point of encroaching on their territory," she replied, disentangling his hands and bursting through into the empty dirt road. "Besides, someone needs help! Can't you hear?"

"You're gonna get eaten, crazy lady!"

"Yeah, the Tailow are gonna peck your eyes out!"

"Bloodthirsty little brats," she muttered as she ran deeper into the woods. They were only little kids, six and seven and eight and nine. They were far too little to be talking about eating people and pecking out eyes…

She hit the first clearing on the dirt road, where the wild grass stopped abruptly at the edge of the dirt road. A middle-aged man in a lab coat stumbled almost drunkenly through the waist-high grass, and a little Poochenya leapt cleanly out of the cover and nipped at the edge of his pristine white coat.

A single snort escaped from her as she bit down hard on her lip.

"Stop laughing and help me, girl!" the man shouted as he stumbled onto the road, the Poochenya right behind him and yapping madly. "There are pokeballs in my bag! Hurry up and use one of them!" The bag in question was blocked from his own grasp by the impish little pokemon that was still snapping at the edge of his lab coat.

_So, two options. Fight, or talk my way out of this…_

_Screw talking. I'm not going to blow my secret over something like this. Besides…_a glimmer of hope came to her… _If I fight my way out of this and do a good job, maybe I can sweet talk him into registering me!_ She made a mad dash for the bag and snatched the first circular object that came to hand, hurling it as hard as she could.

"Pokeball! Go!" she shouted. Something small and red hurtled past the professor, landing more by accident then by design directly between him and the Poochenya, which shied back a pace in startlement. There was a burst of light, and out popped a small, orange birdlike pokemon. The pokeball bounced right back into her hand, just like she'd seen her father do thousands of times throughout her childhood. A heady euphoric feeling rushed up, but she crushed it ruthlessly. _This isn't real. You're not a trainer yet, and you probably won't be one until you're eighteen. Now concentrate, you have a serious job to do… Operation Saving of the Lab Coat. No, seriously… concentrate._ Thankfully, considering how little she knew about Hoenn region pokemon, it was one that she did recognize, a Torchic._ Okay, it's a fire-type. I'm guessing from how little it is that it can't be much more than a newly-hatched chick, so I can't count on it knowing fire-type moves just yet… although if I didn't have an AUDIENCE I could just ask… _"If you have Growl or Leer, use one!"

-Actually, I know Growl!- the Torchic replied cheerily. Although, all a normal human would have heard was, "Tor, torchic!" It then issued forth a very disturbing noise somewhere between an animalistic growl and a chirrup, causing the Poochenya to nervously dance back a step. _Okay, that should have taken the edge off of the Poochenya's attack power, now let's try something of our own… I wonder what its attack move is? Probably either Scratch or Tackle at this stage of development… I'm going with Scratch._

"Good job, little guy! Now follow it up with Scratch!" The brave little Torchic bounded forward, just as the Poochenya shook off its unease and began its scuffling, awkward charge. It pounced on the Torchic, but the tactic backfired, serving only to expose its underbelly to the little chick's sharp claws. The Poochenya howled in pain and leapt off as if burnt, scrabbling away as quickly as its paws could carry it, leaving a trail of bloodsplaters on the grass in its wake. "Alright, excellent job!" she gushed to the Torchic, although she felt strangely dissatisfied and a little guilty. That hadn't really been a fight, all they'd done was chase off a drastically weaker pokemon. She found herself feeling sorry for the poor little Poochenya who had only been defending its territory from the idiot with the white coat and the needles… _Oh, stop feeling sorry for the brat. He was making a nuisance of himself, picking on someone who wouldn't fight back. You don't need to feel sorry for him. _"Did that Tackle attack hurt you?"

-Not nearly as much as my claws hurt him!- the Torchic replied cheerily. -Although… I can't help but feel sorry for him. He wasn't much more than a puppy… but he should know better then to pick fights with humans.-

"Well hopefully the lesson will stick and he won't have so much trouble in the future," Terra murmured as she bent over on the pretext of checking for injuries. No one knew that she could do this, not even her parents (although she privately thought that her father suspected). She couldn't let some strange scientist find out. Sure, this Birch was a friend of her parents… but that didn't necessarily mean he'd restrain himself from cutting her open to see how she worked. It didn't even necessarily mean that he'd feel all that guilty about it, either.

The Torchic blinked up at her in confusion. -You can understand me?-

"Yeah, but it has to be a secret, okay?" she muttered to it – no, something about its voice sounded masculine to her. "You seem to be just fine, little guy. I'm glad!" she announced loudly enough for the professor to overhear while ruffling the bright yellow feathers that adorned Torchic's head.

-Fine, be paranoid,- he snorted, rolling his eyes. Terra sighed. It wasn't like she was going to have an opportunity to explain things to the little guy later… _Well, not unless I'm very lucky._

"Thanks a lot!" the Professor sighed, wiping sweat off his brow. "I'm Professor Birch… in case you couldn't tell by the getup," he waved his coat like a banner and Terra giggled. "I was studying pokemon in the tall grass when that Poochenya jumped me. Somehow, it managed to throw my bag all the way over there so I couldn't get to any of the pokemon in my bag… clever little guy. I'm Professor Tristan Birch, by the way. You wouldn't happen to be Terra Boyden, would you?"

"I'd pretend to be surprised, but in a town this small you must know everyone on sight," she replied with a charming grin. "So, do you get chased around by wild pokemon often? The kids at the town limits were sort of treating this like a spectator sport."

The professor blushed. "Aheh...just because I love to study Pokemon doesn't mean I'm very good at battling with them. Were they taking bets yet?"

"Not that I saw," Terra replied neutrally, wondering whether she should be offering condolences or treating the whole thing as a joke. _It's too bad I don't know more about his personality or what kind of research he's doing, or sweet talking him would be a whole lot easier!_

"Something to be thankful for, I guess," he sighed. "However, this isn't the best place to have this conversation," he added, scanning the greenery as if more Poochenya were amassing to attack. Although, considering the pup _was _a canine-class, it wasn't all that unreasonable to assume that it ran with a pack. "Would you care to continue this conversation at the lab?"

"Well, sure. I guess you'll be wanting your Torchic back now…" she lifted the Pokeball to recall the Torchic, feeling a pang of loss already, but Birch's uplifted hand froze her.

"Actually, I think it would be best if you keep him."

"W-what?" _I can't believe that it was this easy! I didn't even have to try and convince him!_ And of course if she was going to be keeping the pokemon he would have to register her! Immediately!

"As you saw earlier, fighting pokemon are wasted on me. I merely hold on to them for trainers waiting to start from Littleroot, and no one has spoken for that Torchic yet. As Norman's daughter, I know you'll be a phenomenal trainer. We can just go right over to the lab and get you registered…."

_Registered… _she thought dreamily to herself. He hadn't said a word about getting her parents' permission. Probably, like so many other people, he assumed that because her father was a Gym Leader, that she would be following in his footsteps. _Wait, speaking of fathers and registering… _"Um… would you happen to know a family, husband, wife, son, and daughter who practically reek of money?"

"Huh? The Verandis? How do you… oh no. They're early, aren't they."

"Um, if by 'early' you mean 'here right now and have been waiting for a while'… then yeah, they're early."

"They weren't scheduled to come until tomorrow!" he hissed. "They're lucky I sent Brendan up to Route 103 to collect samples instead of going myself or they might have had to stay the night in the bed and breakfast and _waited_ for the first time in their miserable lives…" he hissed as he scooped up his bag and stormed down the path back to the town.

-He sounds mad,- the Torchic commented.

"He has a right to be," Terra commented, scooping up the little bundle of feathers. "So, ride, be carried, or back into the ball?"

-I have a choice?-

"You're my pokemon now, but I'd rather be a friend then a slavemaster. Do you have a preference? I'd let you walk, but my stride is so much bigger than yours that it's not really practical."

-…I'll ride.-

"Fine by me," she replied, shifting her weight so that he could latch onto her shoulder and immediately regretting it. "Ouch! I'm not a pincushion!"

-Sorry, I'm not used to sinking my claws into things that I'm not tearing to pieces!- he replied, instantly withdrawing most of the pressure. -Is this better?-

"Not really… why don't you perch on my forearm instead?" she asked, dragging her right arm over to her left shoulder, trying to minimize the distance the Torchic would have to move. It hopped easily enough over the small gap and clamped down on her arm. It was a lot less painful, but one of the first things she was going to have to invest in was a heavy glove of some sort to protect her arm. "Okay, you comfortable?"

-Yeah,- the Torchic replied, still sounding surprised that she cared so much.

"Okay, there's only one real ground rule for being my pokemon… please try not to talk to me too much when there are other people around. If other humans found out that I could talk to pokemon… well, I'd either be treated like a freak or I'd have so many people bugging me to translate for them that I'd never get anything done. Or a fair helping of both."

-That sounds annoying. Okay, I'll do my best to remember.-

"Right, now let's see Prof Birch about getting registered, she said, using her left hand to retract the pokeball and attach it to her belt. She then ran back into town while keeping her right arm as level as possible, but it wasn't as hard as she would have thought before trying it. "And maybe on the way we can think of a name for you…"

* * *

When she slid into the lab about ten minutes later, Birch and Verandi senior were still arguing over the issue of Birch's supposed tardiness in the sorts of forced civil tones that run through a room like drafts of cold air. To her intense disappointment, the mother had stormed off in a huff and the brother had gone to try and placate her, leaving the room much less interesting. She didn't want to get sucked up into this argument. Perhaps she could come back later and… 

"I'm… sorry about my dad. He treats everyone like this."

Terra jumped slightly. She had forgotten that the other girl was in the room.

The daughter had inherited her father's slight build and pale gray eyes, although which side of the family the black hair had come from, Terra couldn't begin to guess. Her features were enough of a blend between the two to give her face a suggestion of openness and kindness, something that was lacking from both parents. She wore a deep blue v-neck tank top with crimson embroidery around the neckline and long black gloves that cut off at the fingers A very long and thick midnight blue scarf was wound several times around her neck and still the ends hung to her waist. Hanging at each end of the scarf was an oblong ivory bead about as long as Terra's outstretched hand and maybe as big around as a pokeball, etched black enamel ivy patterns circling the center. Terra couldn't believe that the girl was still breathing, those beads looked _heavy._ Her plain black linen slacks cut off at mid calf and had darker red laces running up the outsides of her legs. Her vest was black, like the gloves, and covered with pockets to slip convenient things, like potion bottles or antidotes or extra emergency cash. From one shoulder hung a bright red rucksack that matched the belt around her waist, adorned with three pokeballs. She might look the part of a trainer, but the squeaky newness and fabric quality of her clothing said that she had too much of Daddy's money to be anything but green as new grass.

"No offense to you, but your father strikes me as someone with a rather abrasive personality."

The girl tittered nervously, but the rigidness began to dispel from her shoulders. "Well, people certainly don't do business with him for his charming good humor… I'm Lisha, by the way. Lisha Verandi."

"Terra Boyden.," she replied, shaking. "So, are you registering?"

"I hope so," she responded glumly, her shoulders sagging as she glanced over at her father. "He's the one who said I should come… toughen me up a bit, you know? Now it looks like he's having some serious second thoughts."

"So… you're keen on leaving home?"

"More than anything in the world," she said fervently. It felt to Terra like a desperate echo of her own thoughts.

"Well… I'm thinking of leaving on a journey myself." _If I can get away from my parents…_ "Maybe we could go part of the first leg together?"

She glanced carefully at her father, seeming to make sure he wasn't paying any attention before answering, "It might be nice to have some company, if you can pull your own weight."

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" Terra asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

"It means that I've been trained in battle theory since I could understand what my instructors were talking about, I have been instructed in self defense, money management…" she trailed off, her mouth snapping shut with an audible clicking sound. "I will not allow you to screw up this chance for me. I will _not._"

Terra blinked, slightly taken aback at the abrupt change of mannerisms, from oh-so-cuddly-and-helpless to someone to watch carefully. However, an outburst that normally would have put her back up and driven her to fury breezed past her unnervingly.

-Why are you letting her talk to you like this?- her still-unnamed Torchic hissed.

"Because she's not talking down to me… she's just terrified,- Terra murmured as softly as she could

It was Lisha's turn to look at her with narrowed eyes – even though she hadn't heard what Terra said, it would have been impossible for her to not notice anything when she was standing face to face with her.

"Did I say something amusing?" she growled.

"Not really. I was just wondering if you could tell the difference between what plants are poisonous and what's edible."

"Now why would I need to know…"

"Or how to pick a good camp sight."

"What are you…"

"Or even how to start a good campfire, and how to make sure it stays where it's supposed to."

"Is there a point to this, or are you just going to continue needling me?" Lisha snapped, exasperated.

"Okay, the point is this. Sometimes it can take you a full week to get from one town to another, and no one makes a point of erecting Pokemon Centers in the wild. So, what do you think when you have to camp out between towns? How are you going to even feed your Pokemon? You'll have six someday, and you'll need to be able to forage for them. Time doesn't stop for them just because you recall them. They still get hungry, they still need exercise. If you leave them in there too long, they atrophy and can't fight properly. So, princess, I think that the real question is… can you get through this journey without my help?"

"I… wasn't aware that being a trainer required so much skill in survival training…" she replied, something in her stunned expression and the widening of her gray eyes reminding Terra very strongly of someone who'd had a tree branch dropped on their head.

Terra winced. She'd definitely gone overboard. "Don't worry too much about it, most of the towns on the beginning legs are fairly close together, that's why the registry towns are located where they are. That, and the wild Pokemon that live in these areas tend to be less territorial. So don't worry too much about it, you'll have plenty of time to learn."

Lisha looked askance at her. "How do you know all these things, anyway?"

"My father was a traveling trainer. This is actually only the second place I've lived in permanently," she said, making a sweeping gesture with her free hand. "Hence my eagerness to leave."

Instead of laughing, Lisha actually looked confused. "But why? It's such a quaint, quiet little town…"

"With no one to talk to and nothing to do," Terra sighed. "I'll go crazy if I stay here."

"Are you sure about that? How long have you been living here?"

"Oh… about an hour," Terra replied with a faint blush. "But sometimes you get a feeling for a place. And this place feels like a nap. I don't want to live in such a sleepy little place for the rest of my life, I want to be out in the world _doing _things, you know?"

"I… see," she replied without a real level of understanding. _Stupid little rich kid probably gets to do whatever she wants, _sprang into her head before she could quash it. Terra honestly didn't think that was the case, or why would she be so desperate to get away from her family? "So, um… is that one of your father's pokemon?"

"What, this Torchic? No, this is the starter that Professor Birch gave me. I'm still trying to think of a name… maybe… Phoenix?"

-Eh… it doesn't feel right…-

"Why not, I like that one!"

-Well, I'm never really going to have wings.-

"Really?"

-_You _should know,- the little Torchic replied with a roll of his deep brown eyes. -I'm gonna have really strong legs, not really big wings. Aren't humans supposed to know things like that?-

"Well so_rry_," Terra snapped, "I'm from Johto. I don't know much about pokemon that are only found in Hoenn."

"Eh… um… can you… understand what it's saying?"

"What do you… oh no…" she actually felt like saying something stronger than 'oh no', but the words just seemed to be sliding right out of her head. The one secret she'd harbored her entire life, and she'd just blabbed it to a total stranger! "Didn't I tell you not to talk to me when there were other people around?"

-…I forgot…- the little Torchic mumbled, ducking its head in embarrassment.

"I should name you Blabberbeak, I swear to Ho-oh…"

"Don't worry, I swear I won't tell anyone," Lisha promised. "In fact… I have a secret too. When we're far enough outside town, why don't I show you mine?"

"Fair enough," Terra replied, only then realizing that she'd just gotten the girl to agree to travel with her. "So… do you have any ideas on names for him? I still think I like Blabberbeak…"

-No way!-

"How about Inferno?" the other girl suggested, cocking her head to one side and looking the Torchic up and down.

"Eh… I don't know… that seems immature to me Like the sort of thing a little kid would name his Growlithe. How about Kindle?"

"Fire _eats _kindle. What about Coal?" Lisha asked.

-Um, don't I get any input on this?-

"Still fuel, which was your problem with my last suggestion," Terra countered, ignoring her Torchic's complaints. "Why not… no, Ember is an attack name… Sol."

"Hmm… I kinda like that one. What do you think?" she asked the Torchic fuming on her arm

-It's okay, I guess…-

"You could sound more enthusiastic about it. What's your problem?"

-Aside from the fact that you were both talking over my head? I don't really understand why humans have this obsession with naming things. I never needed a name in the wild.-

"Eheh, sorry about that, I was still mad at you for blowing my secret earlier, I guess. A name helps you differentiate between things. Besides, I always feel awkward when I'm talking to pokemon that don't have names. It sort of feels like I'm saying 'hey human!' when I just call you Torchic."

-Is that rude in human culture?-

"Doesn't it bother you? It's like saying you're not worth enough to me for me to learn your name"

-…I think I can see what you're talking about. Sol is fine. But…why are you so nervous over your gift, anyway?-

"To be honest, I'm afraid that if someone finds out about this gift they'll want to take me apart to see how I do it. I don't want to end up being carted off to some fancy lab and having my brain dissected."

-Dissected?-

"That means that they'd cut it up to see how it worked."

-Um, ow…-

"Exactly."

"Well, isn't this a fascinating conversation…" Lisha muttered, arching an eyebrow.

"Oh, right!" Terra exclaimed, smacking herself over the forehead with her free hand. "You can't understand what Sol's saying. So, um… do your pokemon have names?"

"Of course they do. Brecca, my Eevee, was a birthday gift. I've had her since I was five…" Something seemed to shadow Lisha's eyes for a moment, and she moved on in a rush as if to take her mind off of whatever had just popped into her head. "Cerberus and Avalon I hatched from eggs. No one else wanted to take care of them, so the trainers gave them to me, and I hatched them. It's actually not a lot of hard work. You just have to keep them warm and make sure that they don't get dropped and break," she laughed, her gray eyes staring at a point in the middle distance. "I was a real dork about it, I'd sing to them and rock them in my toy cradle… just like dollies. I think Brecca thought I'd gone crazy."

"Ugh, what kind of lazy trainers leave their pokemon in situations where eggs happen and then can't be bothered to take care of the result? Talk about people who would make lousy parents…"

"Yeah… you'd probably say the same thing if you'd met them in person," she replied, her expression darkening. Terra took the hint, and decided to drop it.

"May I see your pokemon?" she asked instead.

"Sure! Come on out everybody!" she said almost cheerfully, throwing up her pokeballs in the air to reveal an Eeeve, a Houndor, and a Dratini

"Lisha, what are you doing?" her father asked suddenly, head snapping back to his daughter and his eyes narrowing.

"I was just showing Terra…"

"Foolish, showing a future opponent your entire hand. Have any of the lessons of the world I've tried to teach you entered that surprisingly thick skull?" _Okay , it's official. This guy _really _pisses me off,_ Terra decided. Something about his tone, equally insulting and endearing, like a song with sweet music and twisted lyrics, just drove her utterly wild with anger.

"Terra's not a business rival, she's my friend," Lisha snapped, her own silver eyes blazing.

"And what happens to this so-called-friendship which you are basing off of five or ten minutes of interaction, when you have to fight her to advance your own career as a Trainer? You are too naïve and trusting… much like Alucard used to be. You will remember what that trust earned him eventually."

Lisha flinched as if slapped, but her averted eyes seemed to hold even more anger than before. "If I may, _sir, _it was your own employees that…"

"We do not speak of such things in public, Lisha. You know how it upsets your mother," he added, nodding over his shoulder. Both the mother and the son(_Alucard. Musical sounding name… ARRGH! Be silent, hormones, I command it!)_ had left the car and come back in.

"Ricardo, are you quite ready? If we must throw our only daughter to the wilds, then let us do this thing and be done. Waiting weakens my resolve," the woman snapped.

"I'll be out in a moment, Deidre," he replied with a lazy grin. "I just want to remind our Lisha of something before we go."

He took a few confident steps forward, but the Eevee jumped between the two of them with the Houndour only a split second behind. The Dratini curled protectively around her mistress's feet and they all glared and growled.

-Murderer,- Brecca hissed, baring tiny fangs.

-Pupkiller,- Houndour growled in agreement.

-Monster,- the Dratini hissed.

"It appears they all still do as they please," Ricardo Verandi said softly, his silver eyes darkening to a shade much closer to gray.

Fear flashed across Lisha's face, and she pulled her Pokeballs back out. "Brecca, Cerberus, Avalon, return!" she shouted, and all three pokemon disappeared in a flash of red, all looking a mix of indignant and relieved.

"All these years you've been raising them, and they still refuse to obey you. How many years has it been since I gave you that mewling Eevee kit? Eight?"

"Nine, sir," she replied, looking down at her boots. "I'm sorry sir, but they just don't like you. Brecca especially." _Okay, one minute she's snapping at him, the next she's acting like a whipped Poochenya. She's… she's afraid of him, isn't she? But why? _And why not? He certainly gave off that uneasy aura that unsettled her for no apparent reason. _I don't trust him. I don't know why, I look at his face and I can see him ordering my neck broken without changing his expression. _She shivered. _Don't be ashamed for being afraid of him, Lisha, he frightens me too._

The man chuckled bitterly. "Well, I doubt I've given the creature much cause to love me… but it doesn't have to love me, does it? All it has to do is stay out of the way, doesn't it? Either get it to do that in the future or keep it out of the way." _Or you will no longer have it, _that voice said. _If it is not useful, eliminate it._

Terra gritted her teeth to keep from opening her mouth and saying something terribly stupid.

"Ricardo," Deidre said, her red eyes narrowing.

"Very well, anon, I come," he sighed before turning and giving his wife a smile that almost made him look warm. Then the moment was gone and they were filing out. "I expect a progress check in three months, Lisha."

"Of course, father," she said, bending her waist in a tiny bow at his retreating back. She then folded one arm behind her back and crossed her fingers like a child trying to dispel an untruth.

"And I suggest being careful of the company you keep," he added, sparing a baleful glance behind him for Terra, with her Torchic perched on her arm, probably looking like some sort of barbarian to him. In response to his nonverbal criticism, Terra gave him a wide grin that was all teeth and no mirth. Ricardo Verandi's expression turned unreadable for a moment before he whirled out the door with a half snarl, slamming it behind him nearly in his wife's face. Her expression contorted in rage for a moment before she wrenched the door open and sent it crashing shut in her wake, hard enough to cause splinters of wood to fly off haphazardly. Even through the thick wooden door, the murmur of what promised to be a spectacular argument was audible.

"You're either very brave or very foolish," Alucard said, his red eyes fixed on the door.

"Eh, a little bit of both, I'd guess," Terra replied, blushing slightly at the backhanded compliment.

"Don't be down on yourself, Terra," Lisha said, sticking her tongue out at her brother in a flash of impish childishness, "you're very brave. Most people curl up and quiver when my father starts talking about him." _Myself included_ was silently added by the slight grimace that accompanied that statement. "It's like they think that if they assume the fetal position and beg, he'll go away."

"Do you really think that, or are you just supporting me to contradict your brother?" Terra asked with a penetrating gaze.

"Eh… a little bit of both, I'd guess," Lisha replied in perfect mimicry of Terra's speech patterns and tone. They looked at each other, blinked, and burst into giggling.

"One feels pity for whatever poor fools end up marrying the two of you," Alucard complained to the universe at large.

"Oh, really? I seem to recall a phrase about pots and kettles," Lisha teased with a huge grin.

"It doesn't apply here," Alucard replied, all the humor dispelled from his face. "Because I am never going to get married. Remember?"

"I'm so… wait a minute, why am I apologizing? You're the one who opened the subject in the first place!"

"So I did," Alucard replied as if he had just realized it himself. "Forgive me for my outburst. And now I believe it falls to me to keep our dearest darling Mother and Father from flaying one another alive with their tongues." He gave them a courtly bow that set them both to giggling again and swept over to the door, pausing briefly right next to Terra. "Take care of my sister, will you?"

"I was already planning to," she replied, and for a moment their eyes met. There was something dark and frightening lurking in those crimson depths, but she refused to back away.

"I was right about you, stranger. You're a fool… but a brave one."

"My name is Terra, Terra Boyden!" she called to his retreating back.

"I'll remember it," he promised, giving her a half wave but not turning around. The door creaked open and shut, and then he was gone.

"That idiot asked you to protect me, didn't he?" Lisha fumed.

"Well… um… yes, actually, he did," Terra replied, slightly confused at Lisha's annoyance.

"Argh! I can't stand him! Just because he's six years older than me, he feels this constant need to baby me! I'm not a little kid, I'm fourteen years old! I can take care of myself!"

"So... that would make him twenty years old?" Terra asked, trying and failing to sound nonchalant while a brilliant cherry blush started to creep across her cheeks.

"Yup," Lisha replied absently, then suddenly freezing. "Wait a second, don't tell me that you're getting a crush on him..."

Terra was saved the further humiliation of grunting out some sort of reply when the professor came back into the room with their pokedexes.

"Well, I bet you've both been looking forward to this, but these make you official pokemon Trainers," he said with a touch of pride, handing the little red machines over to them. "Especially you, Terra. Your father must be very proud of you."

"Yeah," Terra replied in what she hoped was a tone of agreement. _If he finds out about what my parents think of me being anywhere alone for even five seconds... _What would he do? It was already too late for him to take back the pokedex. But, by the same token, it wasn't too late for her mother to barricade her in her shiny new bedroom for the rest of her natural life. Not that she thought her mother would actually do that... but it was better not to take chances, right?

"By the way, would you mind if I asked you a favor?" the professor inquired.

_Yes, actually, _Terra thought to herself and opened her mouth to say so before Lisha cut her off with a "Why not at all, Professor. What do you want us to do?"

"Excellent, could you go and get my son, Brendan, to come back here? He was conducting field research around route 103..."

"Got it, looking for Brendan on route 103," Lisha repeated happily, elbowing Terra visciously when she opened her mouth to object. "In fact, we'll get on it right now, won't we Terra?"

"Sure," Terra hissed with a half-grimace, half-smile. If he had noticed the interactions between the two young Trainers, Birch gave no sign of it. With a few more words of trivial good-bye, the two junior trainers left the lab. As soon as the door was closed, Terra rounded on Lisha, her expression furious.

"What was that all about?! Now we're going to probably lose a day at least!"

"I... don't see what the problem is, really." Lisha said slowly.

"I… well… oh never mind, let's just get out of here as fast as we can! The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can really leave!"

-I don't see what the problem is either,- Sol added. Terra suppressed the urge to recall him to his pokeball and stalked off towards the main gate out of town.

_Well, what am I going to do _now? she wondered.

* * *

Dun dun DUN! Looks like that's the end of the first chapter! And considering how long they are and how much time I put into them, could you maybe drop me a review? Please? (Puppy dog eyes) 


	4. Second Chapter: Begin

Second Chapter: Begin

* * *

_(Littleroot. Yes, still Littleroot. Questions, and the rare answer or two.)

* * *

_

Terra's feet froze at the gates that marked the outer limits of the little town of Littleroot. It wasn't because the wooden fence that marked the boundary of human influence in the area was particularly intimidating. It was very much reminiscent of a picket fence, only six feet high with no gaps between the posts. Everything was painted white in various stages of peeling away (someone should really take care of that sooner or later) and all the vertical slats ended in blunt triangular points. No, the fence merely added to the cozy(suffocating) homey feeling of the village. Terra strongly doubted it would deter a Caterpie with a mind to forcibly enter, but from what she'd seen earlier, she doubted that the local Pokemon were really all that violent. Even the little Poochenya that had been chasing the professor around had been more mischievous than outright vicious. No, something else had frozen her, allowing Lisha to catch up with that bewildered expression on her face.

She was leaving. She was really leaving.

Could she do it without saying goodbye to her mother?

She loved the road. She loved the feeling that every day would bring her something different and new, even if it was only a different hill to watch the sunset from. That was how she had grown up, and the increased periods of stagnancy, of 'settling down' had started to drive her crazy over the last couple of years. School? What did she need school for? She could read and write well enough to send letters and tally her purchases without using a calculator. She knew more about pokemon than most advanced trainers, thanks to having grown up with her father. Why did she need to be in a classroom where she would be lectured at for hours at a time, and usually told things that she already knew? And homework! As if forcing her to spend perfectly lovely days trapped inside and all but chained to a desk wasn't bad enough, they had to hound her all the way home and force her to waste MORE time on pointless, stupid things that she was never going to use in her real life anyway! It had been bad enough in Fuchsia, and Olivine before that. At least those were cities in their own right, with plenty of things to explore once she was released from her mundane tortures. But here? Littleroot? She'd die of boredom. She would literally crawl under a rock and _die._ And maybe it was melodramatic to even think that, but she did not want to stay in a place where there was probably only one other person her age, and she'd probably be forced to go to the pokemon for company. In a place this small, she would get caught if she tried that, and what would the resident scientists do to her then? That would be just what they needed to get their limping lab of the ground, 'Third Species? Professor Discovers Freak Girl That Understands Pokemon!' So what if this 'Birch' person had been her father's friend? That didn't mean she could trust him with a secret this big…

…like she was trusting Lisha. Damn Sol's big mouth! And her own stupidity for not simply ignoring him. Yet another reason to keep a close eye on the girl.

But…

But. She loved her parents. She loved her mother's clutziness, her earnestness. You always knew exactly where you stood with Katia Boyden, and if she sometimes said tactless things, well, at least you knew she wasn't lying to you. Terra didn't think her mother had ever told a lie in her life, and sometimes she envied her mother that simplicity. She loved her father, and his quiet sense of humor, as well as his endless patience with both his pokemon and his daughter. She loved the way he always stood up to other people when he thought something was really wrong, like the way he'd stopped those boys from picking on that rookie trainer back in Cerulean…

And that brought her to one of the deeper reasons she didn't want to stay at home… it wouldn't really be home to her with her father gone. It had been different in the other places they had settled down for a time, where he had been around at least for dinner almost every night and she had _still_ missed him terribly. Now that he was a Gym Leader, a Gym Leader in a different town…

She might see him once a week. If she was lucky. She was still proud of him, and happy that he'd finally fulfilled his life's goal, but it still hurt to know that, in a way, that goal had been less important to her than herself and her mother…

"Why are you just staring off into thin air, Terra? You're kinda giving me the creeps…" Lisha commented, poking Terra in the ribs as if to make sure she was still awake.

-For once, I agree with her. Snap out of it,- Sol added, which Terra resented slightly but chose to ignore. She deliberately shut her eyes and took a big breath, exhaling slowly to regain her focus.

"Can you do me a favor, Lisha? A really big favor?" Terra asked at last.

"What is it?" Lisha inquired warily, unnerved by Terra's suddenly almost vulnerable tone.

"I… I didn't exactly ask my parents if I could start my journey yet. Mostly because, well, I was fairly certain they'd say no. They're both textbook cases of overprotective. My dad's all the way in Petalburg, so it's only my mom, but… I just don't feel right slipping off without even saying goodbye. She'd worry herself sick if I just vanished into thin air. Plus, I need some things from my stuff, like money and my backpack and a sleeping bag and probably my camping gear. I… could you wait here for me? Just for an hour or so at the most?"

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Lisha offered. "You know, just in case things get… well, out of hand?"

Terra arched an eyebrow at the expression and the tone, which seemed to convey that 'out of hand' was so much more than just a screaming match and some broken dishes. She couldn't help but wonder what would happen if Lisha had been in her position, about to break news like this to _her_ parents… actually, considering that creepy aura that Mr. Verandi gave off, maybe she didn't _want _to imagine that. "It'll get really sappy. You might get sugar poisoning if you come."

"How about I just wait outside while you talk? I wouldn't want to intrude, but…"

"If that's what you want," Terra sighed, caving in before Lisha's worried insistence. It was almost like Lisha was afraid that Terra's mother was going to hit her when she found out the news. Which was ridiculous, of course.

Right?

It took all of five minutes to make it back to Terra's house. She couldn't help but wish that it had taken a little longer. She still had no idea what she was going to say, everything she could come up with sounded bratty and irresponsible, even inside her own head. She wished she could bounce ideas off of Sol (something told her that Lisha would be singularly unhelpful in this department), but there were just enough people out and around that she would get a lot of odd looks if she started a conversation with a pokemon. The moving van was just pulling out as they approached the little house that avoided being tiny solely by virtue of having two stories instead of one. Terra told the part of her mind that was insisting that this was a bad omen to kindly shut up. Surprisingly, it obeyed. Weird. Maybe she should try being nice to the voices in her head more often?

Terra took several deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down. Lisha took several steps back so she wouldn't be in direct sight of the door and flashed Terra a hopeful double-thumbs up. It would have been more reassuring if her right hand hadn't immediately drifted down to her waist to rest over her pokeballs. Terra tucked Sol behind her back (-Hey! What's the big idea?-) and knocked once, twice, three times on the door.

* * *

"Coming!" Katia shouted cheerfully. Dear John and his three Machoke had been so helpful with getting everything unpacked and arranged properly, it almost made up for the fact that Norman hadn't been able to get away from his gym duties to help with the move. The best part was that Terra's computer hadn't been damaged at all when the box had fallen! Now the girl could keep in touch with her friends in Fuchsia after all! It might help her feel a bit less lonely. Katia hadn't missed the way that her daughter had looked at the small town that they had moved to, and hoped it wouldn't be much of an adjustment shock for her. Terra was used to either living in the wild or living in a big city with lots to do and new things to see. She really hoped that her daughter wouldn't be too lonely in the first few weeks. It was going to be especially hard for her to cope with her father being gone so much, but Katia was confident that Terra would persevere. The child was very strong and adaptable, just like her Norman…

Katia was mildly surprised to throw open the door and see Terra standing there, one hand tucked behind her back and looking decidedly nervous. Odd, Terra almost always waltzed into whatever room she entered, as if the fact that she wouldn't be wanted there simply hadn't occurred to her. "Terra honey, I'm so sorry! Did I lock you out?"

"No, Mother, you didn't," her daughter replied softly, bright blue eyes downcast. Why was the girl acting like she'd done something wrong? It couldn't have been more than an hour or an hour and a half since they'd arrived. What could she possibly have done to cause trouble in so little time? True, she'd been quite the practical joker as a child, but she'd grown out of that phase when she was ten. So Katia decided to change the subject. For now.

"Isn't the new house lovely, dear? The moving company got everything in place so quickly… why, it's like we've been here for a week already! Not a single unpacked box to worry about, I'm so happy…"

"This… is what you've always wanted, right Mom? Someplace to settle down and raise a family, right?" Terra asked, almost squeaked, really. What was the child so nervous about?

"Well, I have to admit there's a part of me that would rather be on the road with your father than sitting in this house without him, but I'm not getting any younger. It's been harder and harder for me to keep up with the two of you… and truth be told, I think your father is starting to slow down, too. Besides, it's not right for a girl like you to grow up without anyplace to really think of as home…" Terra flinched at this, as if Katia had slapped her. "Terra, darling, what's bothering you?"

"Mom, I don't want to be tied down to one place. I've always been happiest when we were on the move, so don't think that you're a deficient parent just because I didn't grow up the way you did., I loved going someplace new every day, and I loved being with you guys. In fact, I love being on the road so much…" she drew her arm out from behind her back. Perched on it was something small. And orange. And feathery. And breathing. And looking at her with clear dark eyes…

"Torchic, tor tor!"

"…That I've decided that I'm ready to start my own journey."

* * *

Her mother's jaw dropped and her blue eyes bulged. In Terra's experience, this had never been a good sign.

"Terra Laurel Boyden… what is _that?_" she asked, jabbing a finger at Sol. The little Torchic eyed her finger pointedly as it hovered inches from his beak, almost as if…

"Sol, if you bite my mother I'll kill you myself!" Terra hissed under her breath, horrified. That was all she needed, something else to go wrong. Maybe Lisha would decide to 'rescue' her with her Houndour and accidentally set the house on fire. _That_ would be the perfect ending to what was shaping up to be a fine fiasco. Holy Ho-oh preserve her, she could see it happening now…

-Eh, heh, heh… gut instinct?- the little pokemon offered weakly. Terra glared at him but didn't reply. She'd chew him out more privately later. If there _was_ a later…

"I don't hear an answer, missy," Her mother prodded, implacable.

"This is a Torchic. He's one of the three starter pokemon types offered in Littleroot. This one is named Sol, because he's mine. I am now officially a Pokemon Trainer of the Hoenn League, and as such I am beginning my journey. Today." _Ow. Subtle, Terra, thou art not. Guess her referring to Sol as an 'it' bothered me more than I thought…_

"Terra, we've been over this time and time again! You're…"

"Fourteen, mother, fifteen in three months and six days! I'm almost an adult! Fifteen is old for a trainer to start! If I don't get on it I'm going to fall behind everyone and I'll _never _be as good as Dad!" she was shouting now, and she didn't care. She could see her birthday looming, just like it had every time since she had been on the verge of eleven and so excited… and now all that was left was frustration and dread, as a new year trickled away and all she did was _vegetate._ As long as she was moving it didn't bother her, but the moment she stopped… "You have your dream, and Dad has his… what about mine, Mom? Why am I the only one that has to be unhappy?"

"This is why you're still too young to start, Terra," her mother sighed, eyes shuttering as she prepared to shut out all her arguments. As usual.

"Dad was twelve," Terra grumbled rebelliously.

"Your father was impulsive and foolish to begin so young, he's very lucky that nothing bad happened to him," Her mother began, clearly working herself into a 'dangers of the road' speech, the same lecture she'd gotten ever since her first request to start her journey had been ruthlessly shot down.

"Well then, it's a good thing I shall be accompanying her, is it not?" a now-familiar voice interjected as Lisha glided in, her face cool and nearly expressionless. Terra recognized the same self-possessed woman she'd seen when Lisha had briefly stood up to her father. "Forgive me for lurking in the doorway, but I did not wish to intrude on a private discussion. I am Lisha Delilah Verandi, and Terra has agreed to accompany me on the first leg of our journeys, for although I am learned in strategy and the keeping of pokemon, the keeping of myself in a wilderness setting was never a part of my education."

Katia was struck mute mid-lecture. "I… you… just because…"

"Mom, I know you're not happy about me leaving so soon, but… something just tells me that this is the time. It's not just that I want to keep an eye on Lisha…" The black-haired girl shot her a Look, which Terra ignored - it served her right for interrupting a private conversation. "But something is telling me that I wasn't meant to live here. And it's not just that I don't like being confined in such a small place, it's not just that it won't feel like home without Dad around… I'm uneasy. I feel… I don't know how to explain it…" What she didn't want to say was the last time she had felt such a strong urge to leave a place was the Pokemon Center in Olivine City. Less than two hours later Team Rocket had raided the Center, killing half a dozen trainers for their pokemon and wounding several of the Center staff. Thank Lugia that her parents had decided to cave in to her insistence that she needed ice cream _now_ and had moved to the parlor down the street…

Come to think of it, hadn't they left the Johto region shortly after that? Yes, just two days later, her father had used the winnings from the tournament he'd just participated in to obtain passage to Vermillion on a boat. He'd left right in the middle of a tournament! That was so odd that it stuck in her memory to this day; they hadn't been in a position at the time to turn their noses up at extra money. Had they returned to the Johto region since that incident? No, they hadn't. Odd…

"Terra, that is the most unreasonable reason to start a journey I've ever heard. We're taking you right back to the Lab and Professor Birch can revoke your registration, and you won't even _think _about registering until you're eighteen and an adult, is that absolutely clear?"

"You have made your point, Mother. Time and time again you have made your point," Terra growled, something clicking in the back of her head. "You've made your point to the edge of paranoia. So, I'll make you a deal. If you can answer one question honestly for me I'll go back to the lab and turn in my pokedex… I refuse to give up Sol, but I won't leave home until I'm eighteen."

Her mother blinked, surprised that she would be so easily mollified and Lisha gasped softly in surprise.

-You're really okay with being cooped up here?- Sol asked incredulously.

"She's not going to answer my question," Terra murmured smugly, running a hand through Sol's yellow feathery crest to calm him.

"I… very well, that sounds fair enough. Ask your question, sweetheart," her mother agreed, sounding relieved.

"I'm not so old that I can't remember how much we bounced around when I was little. Whenever we spent more than three days in civilization… _any _civilization… you started to get antsy. I remember how you nearly snapped my head off when I'd talk to strangers. I remember the first time I wandered off, and what a wreck you were when Dad found me. In fact, that's the only time Dad ever shouted at me in my memory. You were both angry… but it was like you were angry to keep from being scared. Why is it that you've always handled me like you're afraid I'll disappear if you close your eyes too long?"

* * *

Katia said nothing for almost five minutes before Terra stalked up to her room, slamming her bedroom door behind her with a resounding crash that seemed to shake the house to its foundations. The well-spoken young girl looked from Katia to the staircase several times before following Terra upstairs with a worried half-frown creeping onto her face. What was it that had sealed her lips, squashing any of the half-truths that should have been obvious and easily voiced? Had it been Terra's earnestness? The presence of an outsider?

Or was it simply the flicker of burnished gold that had glimmered for a moment in cerulean eyes like a spark waiting to burst into flame?

She had done such a good job of forgetting Diahandria Anasera. Even the woman's face had blurred and faded in her memory, but that tiny flicker brought it back in vibrant detail. Was it really any safer to keep Terra trapped even someplace as obscure and hidden as Littleroot? Would she actually be safer on the road?

She didn't know. Perhaps that was why she couldn't say anything. Because she simply didn't know.

* * *

-Why are you so angry? Weren't you expecting her not to answer?- Sol asked, nestling into the pillow that she wasn't going to be using again for a while. It would be several months before she visited again, at least. She would need that much time to cool off, and for her mother to get used to her not being around all the time anymore.

"I expected her to say _something,_" Terra growled, throwing two sets of spare clothing into her backpack. It was a good thing that the movers had been so thorough about unpacking everything or she might have wasted the afternoon hunting down what she needed. "Hell, even a _lie _would have been better than nothing. This means that her overprotectiveness springs from something so bad that she doesn't even want to think about it, that she never contemplated me asking about it because that would mean she had to think about the underlying issue. This is a million, zillion times worse than I thought it was and I need to get out of here before I blow… or you bite her finger off," she finished dryly. Sol ducked his head in embarrassment.

-In my defense, it's natural instinct to bite anything that gets that close to my face. She was asking for it.-

"I guess I should be thankful you restrained yourself with the way this whole mess has been going," Terra groaned, fastening her sleeping bag to the bottom of her backpack and tightening the straps with a tad more force than was strictly necessary.

"You're almost exactly six months younger than me," a voice commented softly from the door, and Terra jerked up to meet Lisha's silver gaze.

"What are you talking about?" Terra asked, confused.

"You were complaining about being held back earlier. Well, I'm just starting my journey and I've been fifteen since January fifth. Since today is March the third, according to what you said to your mother, you were born on June sixth. Which makes me six months older than you, and already fifteen."

"Is there a point to this?" Terra muttered, still irritated from her fight with her mother earlier.

"My point is that you do not need to hurry your life. If you want to stay here with your mother… the world isn't going anywhere. I don't want you to feel like you have to begin your journey right now because of me. Maybe you should wait a few more weeks for her to get used to the idea. You _did _just move in today, perhaps you're being a tad too impulsive?"

"It's not impulsive when I've been planning to do it since I was ten," Terra snorted. "I just seized the opportunity."

"Fine. But don't you think you're rushing a little?"

Terra sighed. "Maybe. I don't know. I just… I haven't liked a single thing about this place so far. I just feel like I don't belong here. Not to mention that after this stunt my mom will probably put deadbolts on the door and window of my room to make sure I don't sneak out at night. I don't think I could stand her hovering ratcheted up to that extreme. Dad was our center… I don't know if we're _capable _of getting along without him around for weeks – months at a time. I'm not eager to find out, either. Today was probably only the tip of the iceberg… hah, I knew I'd packed my camping dishes in here somewhere!" she declared triumphantly, tossing them into her backpack. "We should probably stock up on traveling food in Oldroot. It's the closest town, only about half a day away. We'll definitely be able to make it there by nightfall, with the double plus of being able to sleep in the Center instead of having to camp out on the first night." Not that she minded camping out, per say, but she didn't think that Lisha would be able to handle the shock of suddenly being on her own coupled with roughing it crammed into a twenty-four hour period. Better to spread out the shock a bit. Judging by the grateful look on Lisha's face, she appreciated the thought of a roof over her head. "Hmm, we should also pick up a tarp to keep us dry if we get stuck outside in the rain some night, and one to spread out under the sleeping bags to keep them dry. My family used to lug around a tent, but there were three of us to share the burden. I wouldn't want to carry something that awkward around with just the two of us."

"Can you think of anything else we should pick up while we're in Oldale?" Lisha asked, and Terra suddenly realized what they were both doing. They were delaying going downstairs for a second round with her mother. How stupid. It wasn't like she was going anywhere.

"Not right now, but I'm sure I'll think of something on the road. Come on, if we don't leave soon we won't be able to make it to Oldale in one day after all." Lisha started and almost bolted for the stairs before she could stop herself. Terra smiled and Sol gave a chirruping chuckle as he hopped back onto her arm. Terra winced when his talons closed around her forearm. She was _definitely _investing some of her limited capital on a gauntlet.

When she got to the bottom of the stairs she was surprised to see her mother standing at the bottom of the stairs holding a black… shoebox?

"I had planned for this to be a moving-in present, but I guess it's a going-away one instead," she replied, handing her daughter the box almost as a peace offering. Terra took it and opened it slowly to reveal…

A pair of sturdy running shoes to replace her current pair, white rubber soles and red-stained leather, with black shoelaces that wouldn't show wear as quickly as white ones.

"Mom… my favorite color and everything… thanks. Thanks a lot!" she exclaimed cheerfully, immediately plopping on the floor to put them on. "Is it too much to hope that this means that you're not mad at me?"

"You brought up a valid point, darling. Your father and I have been a bit selfish over the last couple of months. We've been doing a lot of thinking about what _we've_ wanted lately instead of what's best for you. In spite of the fact that we are – as I am sure you have noticed – shortsighted human beings, we are your parents and we love you very much." She leaned down and planted a kiss on Terra's bandanna. "And in response to your question… if you come back with the badge from your father's gym, I will accept that you are ready to hear the answer," Terra's mother murmured in her ear. Terra winced, knowing that she was worlds away from even _thinking _about challenging her father. "Now, I hope you'll visit your old mother every once in a while, Terra… or I'll end up with even more gray hair than I already have!" she teased at normal volume.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Boyden, I'll make sure she does," Lisha promised.

"Traitor," Terra muttered as she held up her arm for Sol to hop onto. Using her free hand, she levered herself to her feet and gave her mother a careful hug. "Don't worry Mom, I'll make sure to drop in _whenever _I'm in the village, _regardless _of the time… or the date… or the weather…"

"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" Katia moaned, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling, eliciting a laugh from her audience, even Sol.

* * *

_(Ye Olde Uncharted Deeps, the tanning deck)

* * *

_

"Crystal…"

"Not talking to you, Quartz," came the singsong reply as his wife of fourteen years raised the reflective foil like a mirrored wall, leaving him staring at his own reflection. His dark red hair, still hanging rakishly down to his shoulders (Crystal always said that he looked handsome with longer hair), his piercing dark eyes… and the choker with the silvery, diamond-cut crystal that he had coveted what seemed like a millennium ago. And now, of course, that he understood what it actually was, he was unable to rid himself of it. Scowling, he turned his eyes skyward, the pale clouds simply serving as a reminder instead of a distraction. With an annoyed snort, he whirled around and stared out off the edge of the deck, eyes locked on the more or less calm water. The scent of the salt water chose that moment to come back to him; after a week on the open water he had ceased to notice it, but now he was glad for the additional distraction.

"I said I was sorry," he reminded her for what must have been the seventh time since the beginning of the trip.

"You still don't mean it," she snapped. Something clattered on the table next to the tanning chair and the soft patter of bare feet on hardwood gently heralded her coming as she joined him against the railing.

"Crystal, this might be our only shot at catching these bastards," he reminded her, "and so no, I'm not sorry. I don't want anyone else to suffer the way I have suffered." He did his level best not to eyeball his wife in the skimpy bright blue bikini she'd been sunbathing in, knowing that when she got this riled the last thing on her mind was the more amorous parts of their relationship, and she'd get even angrier if she thought he was even considering trying to steer the current conversation that way.

"Quartz, I understand why you want to do this. I understand the necessity of putting these people behind bars. I understand that most of what we've been doing since I got you back has been geared towards catching these bastards…"

_And here it comes…_ he thought, his eyes flickering shut as if bracing for an impact.

"…but what I _don't _understand is why it was necessary to drag our _daughter_ into this Ho-oh-be-damned mess!" she shouted, drawing several startled glances from other passengers on the deck. "Ame is seven years old, Quartz. _Seven,"_ she continued, moderating her volume to something more reasonable. "She isn't capable of taking care of herself! Why couldn't we have left her with my mother the way we always do? And don't give me that Taruros dung about, 'needing a cover', taking our daughter into danger is inexcusable."

"I notice that when Lance suggested it all you were able to muster was a 'yes, sir,'" Quartz grumbled.

"You put the idea in his head in the first place! And I was too busy being shocked and horrified to even come up with a logical reason she couldn't come!" she argued.

_Ho-oh's ashes, the worst part about this whole thing is that I _could _get myself off the hook if I told her what was really going on, _he thought to himself. But no, Crystal didn't need to know that Team Rocket was snooping around her mother's place. She'd be nine kinds of completely furious and would abandon the mission, rushing straight home to protect the last living member of her family. (her father had, she had confided in him after they had been married almost a year, been a police officer who had been killed in a fight with Team Rocket when a section of the building they'd all been trapped in had collapsed. After knowing that, her single-minded crusade to tear Team Rocket to pieces suddenly made a lot more sense.) But he, as a father, couldn't leave his cute little princess in a place where he _knew _there were dangerous elements around. Sure, the League had left some of their best people to make sure nothing happened to Crystal's mom, but he couldn't bring himself to trust Amethyst's safety to some faceless strangers. He wanted her where he could see her and protect her…

Yes, there was a logic flaw in there somewhere. He wasn't particularly interested in finding it, thank you very much. _Which just means that I'm going to have to put up with Crystal's bad temper for the rest of the trip, _he thought miserably.

"Mommy! Daddy!" came his all-time favorite tension breaker as a little girl with bright red hair rushed onto the deck. "Look at what Miai won for me! Isn't it pretty?" she asked, holding up a pendant that was, ironically, an imitation of an amethyst.

"Toge! Togetic!" Miai chirruped cheerfully, dutifully bringing up the rear. There was something almost funny about seeing the white, winged creature that stood almost as tall as Ame herself following the girl around like a lapdog. Of all the pokemon that his wife had raised, only the Togetic had gotten on her nerves. He knew for a fact that she had only trained it because Professor Elm had begged her to. She had never had any real interest in it and had never named it. Ame had taken to Miai from the moment they had decided to give the Togetic to her as a birthday present to give her a friend for their long trips and to keep her safe. 'Miai', as the child had chosen to call her, had bonded instantly with the girl and the two of them were inseparable.

"And how did Miai win that necklace for you?" Crystal asked, suddenly and magically all smiles.

"Slot machine! Miai's really lucky!"

"Tic!"

"This was the slot machine in the children's area, right? You and Miai didn't go into the adult gaming area, right?" he asked.

"Of course not, Daddy! Gambling's for grownups. Besides, I didn't have any real money, only tokens. And if this came from the adult gaming area, it would be a _real_ precious stone. This is so obviously fake… but it's really pretty anyway! I'm gonna wear it forever and ever, Miai, as proof of our friendship!"

"Tic!" the extremely odd pokemon exclaimed, hugging Ame.

"She's definitely your daughter, Quartz," Crystal sighed, but she smiled at him for the first time since they'd gotten on the boat.

"Yes indeed. Little girl knows quality when she sees it," he proclaimed proudly. Before Crystal could retort someone small and warm latched around both their legs, forcing them to grab each other for balance.

"I'm so glad I finally got to come with Mommy and Daddy on an adventure. This is one of the bestest best presents I've ever gotten!"she chirruped. Quartz shot his wife a glance as if to say, _how can you stay angry with _that? And Crystal returned him a glare, although a considerable amount of the venom had been leeched out of it.

"You know why I think Lance _really _wanted us to take her along with us this time?" he asked his wife later that night, after they had finally coaxed their hyperactive daughter to bed.

"No, enlighten me," she replied with a sarcastic glance in his direction as she tucked the covers around Ame and Miai, whose current calling in life seemed to be to serve as Ame's plush toy.

"This almost _guarantees_ that we'll refrain from doing anything too stupid."

A stunned silence. "Cinder should have been out for that. It's not very often you have a valid point."

"Hey…!"

* * *

_(Route 101. Circles; running in, full, etcetera.)

* * *

_

"You're certainly cheerier," Lisha commented as Terra bounded through the village gates.

"I'm just relieved that I got through to my mother," Terra admitted. "She's a bit on the stubborn side. I wasn't sure I'd be able to convince her to let me go."

-You really out-stubborned her more than anything else,- Sol commented.

"And how is that not 'convincing'?" Terra demanded.

-It falls under browbeating,- Sol replied.

"Why did I get stuck with the pokemon with the attitude problem?" Terra asked the world at large.

-Attitude problem? You're one to talk!- Sol squawked indignantly. Even though she was only getting half the conversation, Lisha giggled.

"It's nice to see that you're finally relaxing around me."

"Huh?"

"You're not as… hesitant as you were before. It's nice to see you more confident without going Ice Queen like you did when you introduced yourself to my mom."

Lisha winced. "I do apologize about that. I… I think I lost my temper, a little. I made a horrible first impression."

"She didn't make such a stellar one herself, so don't worry too much about it. Just don't judge her by the head-biting incident, okay? We'll visit her again after we fetch the Professor's annoying son, and she'll probably be in a better mood then. She might even have made cookies or something."

Lisha looked around, calculating. "Do you think that this road is used a lot?"

Terra scanned the terrain herself. "I imagine it is," she replied after a moment. "Littleroot is so small that most people probably travel either on foot or by bicycle to Oldale for things like clothing shopping. Why?"

Impulsively, Lisha grabbed Terra's wrist and dragged her into the tall grass, heading straight for the thicker foliage of the dense forest off the beaten path. Terra gasped, almost dropping Sol.

-Hey, watch what you're doing, stupid human!- Sol shouted, digging his claws into Terra's arm to keep from being dislodged. Terra whimpered, really regretting that she hadn't insisted on scouting Littleroot to see if there was someplace that sold gauntlets for flying-types. _Not that they would have had any in a town so tin-OUCH!_

"What's the big idea?" Terra yelped when they finally came to a stop. Sol hopped, or flopped, rather, off her arm. He was too tired to hold onto his perch. Terra took advantage of this to check her arm. Oh yes, the little bird had broken the skin, and she was bleeding from six sizeable puncture wounds. Lucky she was a fast healer. "I mean, I knew the first aid kit would come in handy, but I didn't expect to need it so soon. Or, you know, for myself," she muttered, dropping to the forest floor and twisting her backpack so she could get at the zipper without taking it off.

-Heheh… oops. I'm sorry,- Sol murmured, ducking his head in penitence.

"It's not like you did it on purpose," Terra replied, waving a hand dismissively. And then she winced. Of course she'd wave the injured arm… luckily it was her right. Writing or cooking or tossing pokeballs around would be a pain if she'd injured her dominant hand.

"I… I didn't mean for you to be injured," Lisha apologized. "I just don't want anyone else to see this."

"Oh… you mean your special trick?" Terra asked, pausing for a moment in the process of bandaging her arm.

"Well, I did promise to show you," she reminded them, eyes flickering nervously through the foliage searching frantically for prying eyes.

"Sure. Why not?" Terra mused. Lisha smiled nervously, dropped her backpack, and backed up several paces. She then held up her hands as if there was a globe cradled between them. Almost as soon as Terra had that particular thought, the space between them started glowing, a flickering orb of green and blue and purple-pink dancing in thin air.

-Wow,- Sol commented. Terra nodded in mute agreement. She'd never seen anything like this before, at least not from another human.

"That's not all," she commented, as if she could understand what Sol was saying. She lunged forward and slapped her hands against the nearest tree, and ice exploded in a perfect circle from where her hands had landed. Shards of it slid around the tree trunk, coating the sides in ice and extending clear to a tree almost directly behind the first, leaving a gleaming bridge of ice between the two, already starting to melt in the unusually warm early spring weather.

"What do you think?" Lisha asked, a faint flush spreading across her cheeks and a smile tugging at her lips. She looked happy, happier than Terra had seen her so far except when she was talking about her pokemon. Of course, she'd only known the girl for about an hour, so she probably didn't have that great a gage as of yet.

"That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen!" Terra exclaimed. "It was so pretty!"

-Looked like an Aurora Beam to me," Sol muttered. -I remember my original trainer… or rather, the breeder. He had a Dewgong, and her Aurora Beam looked a lot like that.-

Now that he mentioned it… but Lisha was beaming now. She was not translating that, she had a feeling that her new traveling companion wouldn't appreciate the comparison.

"I'm so happy you think so! I've had to keep this a secret for _years. _Only my family knows I can do that… I felt like you would understand. You're special too, after all."

Special. Not different, not freaks of nature… special. The word choice felt very important.

"Can the rest of your family do things like that?"

"Well… not _quite _like that, but…" the girl floundered, and Terra felt like smacking herself. She'd managed to steer the conversation into dangerous territory yet again. She wondered about the accident that Lisha had mentioned involving Alucard, but… no, asking about that would not only be prying, but would give Lisha another opportunity to tease her about her supposed crush on Alucard. She was not going to open herself up to that embarrassment yet again, especially since Lisha seemed to have forgotten all about the incident (thank Ho-oh)…

"Well, we should probably clear out of the thick undergrowth," Terra suggested, hopefully bringing the conversation to a close, for the moment at least. "If there _are_ any dangerous pokemon around here, they'll be lurking in the deep forests. We've had enough distraction for one day."

-I agree. No offense to Lisha, but humans should not be able to do that, it's just creepy.-

"Sol!" Terra reprimanded, whapping her pokemon lightly on his feather-filled head.

"What did he say?" Lisha asked while picking up her backpack, dusting it of meticulously before fastening it back onto her shoulders.

"Um, he's bugging me for treats. He'll just have to wait for lunchtime like the rest of us," Terra replied, holding out her uninjured arm for Sol to climb onto.

-Don't put words into my mouth,- the Torchic grumbled.

"Don't be rude then," Terra snapped, but she regretted talking back almost instantly. Something about the expression on Lisha's face said that she was getting ready to ask another question…

A pained half-yelp, half-howl cut the conversation short. Several Zigzagoon, startled by the noise, bolted out of the taller grass and headed for the shelter of the deep forest, skittering right past them without even noticing.

-Do you think that's…?-

"Yeah, I do. Hey Lisha, is your Houndour any good at tracking by scent?"

"Yes… why?"

"Can you call him out?"

Lisha frowned, confused. "Well sure, but… oh, why not? Cerberus, come on out boy!" she called, tossing the pokeball up into the air. The Houndour materialized in a burst of light, blinking in momentary confusion before sighing in relief.

-Ah, the pupkiller's gone. Excellent,- the small black and red pokemon sighed, stretching pointedly as his tail started to waggle. Terra quirked an eyebrow but chose to ignore that comment. Time was precious right now. "Cerberus, could you track a blood scent?"

-Of course I can, but who are you to ask me? You certainly aren't my Mistress,- the Houndour snorted.

Terra translated. Lisha sighed and scratched her pokemon between the ears. "Just this once, Cerberus, do what Terra asks you to do. Please?"

The dark-type pokemon acquiesced with a rumbled, -If you say so, Mistress. Although, I guess if she can understand our language she can't be all that bad. So, stranger, what do you want?-

"I'm fairly sure that there's a wounded Poochenya around here somewhere. I want to help it, if I can find it. Would you help me?"

-Wounded… bah, whining puppies, why should I…?- Lisha gave her pokemon a mild glare, and it sighed. In a put upon manner it sniffed the air. -Mmm, something smells really good, like cinnamon and candle flames with a faint coppery tang… oh, that's _your _blood, woman… you smell really good for a human.-

"Um, thanks?" Terra replied to the strangest compliment she'd ever received.

-Now then… puppy, puppy, mangy puppy… I can smell its blood from over here… someone scratched it up pretty good.-

-I didn't _ask _it to try and eat me…- Sol muttered angrily. If the Houndour had been human, Terra would have said that he smirked at Sol, but since canine expressions were harder for her to read than human ones, she couldn't be sure.

-I'd be happy to clean up your mess, chick. I suppose you want to take you there now? Yes, of course you do. This way everyone,- Cerberus grumbled, dashing off. -And please, try to keep up…-

Lisha smacked a hand against her forehead. "Ho-oh's ashes, why does he always have to ask like this? Come on everyone, we have to hurry it up or we're going to lose him!" And with that she ducked back out of the woods, leaving Terra to dash awkwardly in her wake.

* * *

A note on dates: In this chapter, I gave Terra's birthdate as July 6. This is wrong, she was born in January, on the same day as Lisha if you recall the prologue. Norman called in a favor from his father(a lawyer) who called in a favor from some of his shadier business associates and had an actual birth certificate made with a changed date to throw off Team Rocket.

Also, I'd like to apologize for the amount of time it took to get this chapter out. I plead College. That should be a good enough excuse for anyone who knows what I'm talking about, yes?


End file.
